14 Facts About Masrour Barzani

Masrour Barzani was born on 2 March 1969 and is an Iraqi Kurdish politician and serving as prime minister of the Kurdistan Region, since June 2019.

Masrour Barzani is the chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council and a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Masrour Barzani was sworn in as prime minister of the KRG's ninth cabinet on 10 June 2019, after receiving 87 votes out of 97 legislators in the Kurdistan parliament.

Masrour Barzani joined the Kurdish resistance fighters, known as Peshmerga or "those who face death", in 1985 at the age of 16.

Masrour Barzani was an active participant in the Battle of Khwakurk against Saddam Hussein's army in 1988.

Masrour Barzani participated in the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War and filmed both events.

Masrour Barzani established a Barzani Scholar-in-Residence program at American University in order to continue these efforts into the future.

Masrour Barzani was a vocal critic of many of the proposals found in the Iraq Study Group, authoring a Washington Post op-ed on the subject.

Masrour Barzani has been credited with working to ensure that veterans of the Kurdish struggle who are members of his father's political party receive their pensions.

In May 2016, Masrour Barzani authored a second op-ed in the Washington Post advocating an 'amicable' separation of Iraqi Kurdistan from the rest of Iraq.

Masrour Barzani called Iraq 'a conceptual failure, compelling peoples with little in common to share an uncertain future,' and announced the beginning of talks with the Iraqi Government in the lead up to a referendum.

Masrour Barzani is one of the most important figures in the international coalition against ISIS.

Masrour Barzani is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The American University of Kurdistan.

Masrour Barzani laid the cornerstone of the project during a ceremony in Duhok province in December 2013.