ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Kurdistan Region’s top leaders on Thursday commemorated the 64th anniversary of the September Revolution (Aylul), a Kurdish armed rebellion against the Iraqi state.

In September 1961, the Iraqi regime began an aerial bombardment on the country’s Kurdish territories after negotiations between Baghdad and the Kurds failed to bear fruit, leading to a Kurdish insurgency, under the leadership of the late Mustafa Barzani, known as the Aylul uprising.

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani in a statement marked the anniversary of the uprising, describing it as “a comprehensive revolution of the people of Kurdistan with all its different nations, religions, and components.”

The premier stated that the revolution, through the “self-sacrifice and strong will of the people of Kurdistan,” resulted in numerous “important achievements… the most important of which was the March 11, 1970, Agreement.”

The Iraqi state and the leadership of the Kurdish resistance signed an accord in 1970, under which Baghdad agreed to the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region within Iraq. However, the agreement was never implemented by the Iraqi government, reigniting the conflict in 1974.

Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani similarly offered a message of commemoration stating that the revolution “in a complex and difficult era when oppression and denial were imposed on the people of Kurdistan from all sides, became the identity and foundation of national and patriotic thought.”

He emphasized “the supreme goals, principles, and values of the revolution: freedom, democracy, unity, mutual acceptance, tolerance, and peace.”

Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader and former President of the Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani also marked the anniversary, labeling the revolution a “golden page in Kurdistan’s liberation movement” and “a source of strength and inspiration for other stages of the struggle of the people of Kurdistan.”

The revolution ended after the signing of an agreement between the Iraqi and the Iranian governments in 1975 in Algeria, where Iran agreed to cut off support for Iraqi Kurds in exchange for the transfer of Iraqi territory to Iran.

 Reporting by Hevi Karam