Former Iranian Official: Talabani was “Shinni”

Shafaq News / Ezzatollah Zarghami, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting former director, praised the late President of the Republic of Iraq, Jalal Talabani (Mam Jalal).

Zarghami posted on Instagram talking about a meeting with Mam Jalal “he (Talabani) said to me jokingly that he was "Shinni" (a combination of the words Shiites and Sunnis, two Islamic sects), to confirm the necessity of rapprochement between the Islamic sects.

Zarghami praised Mam Jalal, saying that he "did not change even when he became president of Iraq, but rather became more modest, and this is an important lesson that Iranian officials should learn from."

The Iraqi Kurdish leader and ex-Iraqi president Jalal Talabani died on 2017at age 83, a week after Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region held a referendum on independence.

Talabani, a veteran leader of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination, stepped down as president in 2014, after a long period of treatment following a stroke in 2012.

He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq, elected in 2005, two years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab.

One of Talabani’s sons, Qubad, is the current deputy prime minister of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.