Karim Sinjari, former Kurdistan Region interior minister, dies at 75

ERBIL — Karim Sinjari, a veteran Kurdish politician who served as interior minister of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region across four successive governments, died Tuesday evening at the age of 75 following an illness.

Sinjari, whose full name was Abdul Karim Sultan Abdullah, was one of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s most prominent and longest-serving ministers. He held the interior ministry post during the fifth through eighth KRG cabinets and was later appointed an adviser to the Kurdistan Region presidency after the formation of the current cabinet.

Born in 1950 in Sinjar, Sinjari joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1968 and rose steadily through its ranks. He became part of the party’s temporary leadership at the Berlin Conference in 1976 and later joined its leadership council and political bureau during the party’s 13th congress in 2010.

He earned a law and political science degree from Baghdad University in 1971 and worked as a lawyer in the capital until 1973 before moving into government service. He served as director general of the Kurdistan Region’s security forces from 1993 to 1994 and was appointed interior minister in 2001.

Sinjari’s death closes a decades-long chapter in Kurdish politics. His tenure made him one of the most recognizable and influential ministers in the Kurdistan Regional Government’s history.