Jalal Talabani Quotes

A greater international role is important to lift some of the burden from the shoulders of the United States.

Conciliation is not capitulation, nor is compromise to be deemed equivalent to imbalanced concession.

Wishful thinking is one thing, and reality another.

A military coup needs a sacrifice and courage that you can't find in an army without morale.

We are not denying that Turkey has a right to defend itself from extremists but some of its actions are not serving any democratic purpose in Turkey or in Iraq. This will not benefit the relations between the two countries.

Iraq is not going to starve to death because of the absence of assistance from Arab countries.

It was an agreement between (former Iraqi president) Saddam (Hussein) and the shah of Iran (ousted in 1979) and not between Iraq and Iran.

Our gratitude to the American people is immense and we should never be embarrassed to express it.

We must provide all kinds of freedom, personal and economic, to all Iraqis. I will fight for that.

The Kurdish people have the right of self-determination like every other nation in the world.

I voted 'yes' and I urge all Iraqis, no matter their different ethnicities and religions ... to vote 'yes' to the constitution

The Western governments will be encouraged and persuaded to deal with the real representatives and listen to the real voice of the Kurdish people.

Human rights and individual liberties, including religious freedom, will be at the heart of the new Iraq.

The Kurdish people welcome the no-fly zone protection, contrary to the Iraqi regime that is against it.

I must tell you that I am committed, as the president of Iraq, to benchmarks and to do our best to achieve some progress forward for national reconciliation.

Every human must take responsibility for his actions.

Trust is for lovers. In politics there are only converging interests.

We believe that an Iraqi founding national assembly, freely elected, must decide the future of Iraq.

We must acknowledge that for scores of years the Iraqis have offered martyrs and victims but have not been able to change the regime.

As president of Iraq, I shall strive to represent the diversity of a country that has too often in the past denied difference.

Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight.

I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized.

This will be Iraq for all without discrimination among Iraqi citizens, or ethnic or sectarian discrimination.

Under extremely difficult circumstances (Iraq) pursues the inherently complicated task of rebuilding the country. Yet Iraq continues, courageously, to reach for the promise of a democratic, federal and pluralistic state, where generations of oppressed Iraqis will regain their dignity, freedom and the right to join the civilized and progressive nations of the world.

My door will always be open to those who genuinely renounce violence and seek peaceful accommodation into our nascent democracy.

We are trying to persuade all the Iraqi opposition to come breathe freedom in Iraq and use liberated Kurdistan as a base for our common struggle.

The brutal regime of the dictator fell ... the regime that ruled Iraq for decades, the decades of darkness. The decades that were of tyranny.