Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (KDSP)

The KDSP is a comparatively small political group that has been active in Iraqi Kurdistan since 2002. It is regarded as the Iraqi offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of Turkey’s Kurdish region. The KDPS is a platform rooted in the ideals of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK. These ideas include feminism, social ecology, federalism, democratization, communalism and religious tolerance. The party, much like its sister groups in other regions of Kurdistan, underwent a political shift in tandem with Ocalan’s after the fall of the Soviet Union, and progressed from a distinctly Marxist position to a more moderated decentralized socialist approach. It has proved less successful in attracting membership in comparison to other PKK off shoots in Iran and Syria.