Anchorage Daily News

His dad is the president of Iraq. And if his Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq were a country, 30-year-old Qubad Talabani would be its ambassador.

Instead Talabani, who'll visit Anchorage on Friday to address an Alaska World Affairs Council luncheon about his nation's future, carries the title of "representative to the United States" for the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq.

And Talabani is hoping that this title, along with Kurdistan's close diplomatic ties to America, will continue under President-Elect Obama as it has under President Bush.

A year and a half ago, in an interview with Esquire magazine, Talabani worried out loud that a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would have catastrophic consequences for his people.

And now?

"I still feel that way," Talabani said Friday, speaking by telephone from his office in Washington, D.C. "But there are withdrawals, and then there are withdrawals.

"I don't think anyone is talking about such a (quick) withdrawal. ... They want to see a responsible, fair and safe withdrawal. ... I'm pretty sure that the incoming administration will listen to the commanders on the ground."

Probably no one suffered more under the brutal Bathist regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein than the Kurds. Through a series of genocidal attacks in the late 1980s, the people of Kurdistan saw hundreds of their villages razed and more than 50,000 civilians killed. Accordingly, no one probably welcomed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and Hussein's subsequent capture as much as the Kurds.

Including Talabani.

Since the invasion, his Kurdish homeland in the north has quietly recovered while the violence in central and southern Iraq has garnered all the headlines. "It is the safest part of the country," Talabani said. "It is the 'other Iraq.' "

There are about 4 million Kurds in Kurdistan, an area roughly a sixth the size of Oregon, which has the same number of people. They speak Kurdish, an Iranian language, and never fully embraced the post-World War I "solution" by Britain that cobbled them together with the Shia and Sunni Arabs in a Republic of Iraq.

Nearly 50 years ago, Talabani's father -- Jalal Talabani -- served as one of Kurdistan's earliest freedom fighters. In 1975 he founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or the PUK, and began leading an armed resistance that festered inside Iraq for about a decade until he was forced to flee to Syria.

Qubad Talabani grew up in England. He attended college at Kingston University near London and graduated with a degree in automotive engineering. For a while he worked as an auto mechanic. Early this decade, however, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked on a broad range off issues.

His father, meanwhile, returned to Iraq in the early 1990s and helped lead the post-genocide Kurdish uprising. Working with the United States, England and Turkey, he helped negotiate a cease-fire with Hussein and the creation of a Kurdish "safe haven," which led to the founding of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

After the U.S.-led invasion, Jalal Talabani was heralded as a conciliatory politician who emphasized compromise and tolerance. His official biography posted on the PUK Web site describes him as "a secularist and a believer in democracy, inter-ethnic harmony, equality and women's rights." In 2005 he was elected president of Iraq by the Iraqi National Assembly. The Iraqi government is also led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The political stability and relative calm that Qubad Talabani describes in present-day Kurdistan, however, doesn't fully complete the picture. The region is also troubled by occasional border tensions with Syria to the west, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east and even fellow Iraqis to the south -- where the Kurds hope to gain title to the vast oil reserves that surround the largely Kurdish city of Kirkuk.

But the level of violence against Kurds in Kirkuk has subsided over the past two years, Talabani said.

And the recent retaliations by Turkey and Iran to cross-border attacks by Kurdish militants -- "which we condemn" -- doesn't really disturb the lives of ordinary Kurds, Talabani said.

And tomorrow?

"I wish that I was a sooth-sayer and I could tell you what the future will hold for us," Talibani said. "We consider the United States a valuable friend and partner and ally -- and we wish to continue to build on this friendship."

QUBAD TALABANI will address the Alaska World Affairs Council on Friday at the Hilton Hotel. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. $25 nonmembers. For reservations: 276-8038 or AlaskaWorldAffairs.org.