Salih Muslim, veteran Kurdish politician, dies in Erbil after kidney failure

ERBIL — Salih Muslim, a prominent Kurdish political figure from Rojava and former co-chair of the Democratic Union Party, died Wednesday evening in Erbil after suffering kidney failure, according to a PYD representative.

Muslim, 74, had been hospitalized for a week in Erbil under intensive medical supervision before dying on March 11. His body will remain overnight at the forensic medical department in Erbil before being transferred Thursday to Rojava for burial in Kobani, PYD representative Abu Mazloum told 964media.

Muslim was born in 1951 near Kobani and completed his early education there before studying in Damascus and at Al-Kawakibi secondary school in Aleppo. He later studied chemical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, graduating in 1977, and afterward went to London to study English. A co-founder of the PYD in 2003, he served for years as one of the party’s most internationally recognized figures.

Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani offered condolences, saying Muslim “spent his life in political work to achieve the legitimate rights of the Kurdish people” and describing him as “a prominent Kurdish leader in Syria who played a significant role in various stages of the struggle.” Barzani called on God “to bless his soul with mercy and compassion.”

The PUK’s Political Bureau also mourned his passing, saying Muslim “was a key figure in the struggle to secure Kurdish rights and to establish self-administration” in Rojava, and calling his death “a profound loss to our people, to the struggle in Western Kurdistan, and to the pursuit of a new, democratic Syria.”

He had five children. His son Sherwan was killed in 2013 while fighting during the battle for Ras al-Ayn in northern Syria. The PUK’s Political Bureau, in a condolence statement, described Muslim as “the father of the martyr Shervan, who gave his life for the freedom of the homeland.”