Since the death of his father, Mullah Mustafa, in 1979, Massoud Barzani has led the KDP through decades of conflict with the Iraqi central government and with local rivals, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The KDP commands tens of thousands of armed militia fighters, known as peshmergas, and controls a large area of north-western Iraq.

The KDP-led regional government, based in Arbil, claims jurisdiction over the whole of Iraqi Kurdistan although, in reality, control of the region is split with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Regional powers

KEY FIGURES

Massoud Barzani: KDP president Nechirvan Barzani: Prime minister in KDP-led regional government Dr Roz Nuri Shawez: Speaker of the Kurdish parliament Hoshyar Zebari: KDP foreign affairs spokesman and key negotiator

Massoud Barzani, like his father before him, has attempted to maintain the complex balance of forces between the Kurdish groups and the Iraqi central government by a combination of military action and negotiations.

The Iraqi army, despite several devastating attempts, has never managed to completely defeat KDP forces, partly because Mr Barzani has frequently won the support of other regional powers for his cause.

During the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian support enabled KDP forces to operate freely in some areas of the Kurdish countryside.

In the 1990s, the KDP also opened up negotiations with Turkey, resulting in improved trade communications, international travel and generating a much-needed revenue through tolls on Turkish tankers.

Armed clashes

KDP candidates won 50.8% of the votes in elections held in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1992, but a power-sharing agreement with the PUK was essentially still-born, and the rivalry between the two parties soon spilled over into armed clashes.

After years of intermittent fighting, Mr Barzani appealed to Saddam Hussein for support against the PUK in August 1996. With the help of Iraqi government troops, KDP forces seized the northern city of Arbil - the seat of the Kurdish parliament - from the PUK in early September 1996.

Joint session

Rising tension between the United States and Iraq provided an impetus for KDP-PUK reconciliation.

The two parties signed the Washington Peace Accord in 1998, but it was not until October 2002 that KDP and PUK representatives took their seats in a joint session of the Kurdistan National Assembly.

The KDP has publicly rejected both independence for Iraqi Kurdistan and US military intervention against Saddam Hussein.

Kurdish satellite TV reported on 26 November that Mr Barzani told a news conference in Paris that the KDP demanded "a parliamentary, pluralist and federal Iraq". He added: "We do not support war and we urge that it should not be started, because war creates crisis and problems."

Party structure:

The most powerful figure in the KDP is the party's president, Massoud Barzani. In 1999, Barzani was re-elected along with a Central Committee, which chose a new Political Bureau for the KDP. Political Bureau and Central Committee members are responsible for the KDP's 10 branches, including those representing members abroad.

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