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Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani to step down | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
Iraqi Kurdish president Massoud Barzani is to step down as the region wrestles with Baghdad over independence. | |
In a letter read to the Kurdish parliament, Mr Barzani said he would not seek an extension to his term which had been due to end in four days. | |
"I ask parliament to meet to fill the vacancy in power", he said. | |
Kurds voted last month for Kurdistan to secede but Iraq's central government insists the referendum was illegal. | |
Iraq's army then launched an assault on the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk, seizing the area's rich oil fields. | Iraq's army then launched an assault on the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk, seizing the area's rich oil fields. |
Mr Barzani said he would remain a Peshmerga, or Kurdish fighter, and would "continue to defend the achievements of the people of Kurdistan". | |
The 71-year-old's dream of Kurdish independence has been left in tatters in the wake of the referendum on 25 September, despite wide support within the region to see it break away. | The 71-year-old's dream of Kurdish independence has been left in tatters in the wake of the referendum on 25 September, despite wide support within the region to see it break away. |
He held office from 2005, having played a prominent role in creating an autonomous Kurdish state in northern Iraq after Saddam Hussein fell. | |
Barzani went on to win another presidential election in 2009, and his term was extended in 2013. | Barzani went on to win another presidential election in 2009, and his term was extended in 2013. |
After losing territory around Kirkuk to the central government, Mr Barzani faced calls to stand down by opponents in the Kurdistan Region. | |
Presidential and parliamentary elections due for 1 November were suspended when the Kirkuk assault started. | Presidential and parliamentary elections due for 1 November were suspended when the Kirkuk assault started. |
Who is Massoud Barzani? | |
He was born in August 1946 in the short-lived Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in Iran. | |
On the same day, his father Mustafa Barzani, who led the republic's army, founded the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). | |
Following the collapse of the republic, Mustafa Barzani - a much-revered figure in the Kurdish national movement - fled to the Soviet Union. Massoud later returned to Iraq and lived with his grandfather in Mosul. | |
He took control of the KDP on his father's death in 1979, and escaped an assassination attempt in Vienna the same year. | |
In 2014, after ordering his Peshmerga forces to join the fight against Islamic State militants, he was named a runner-up in Time magazine's Person of the Year prize. |