Wasta Faruq Kanarwey



Faruq Aziz Qadir (Kurdish: فاروق عزیز قادر), known as Wasta Faruq Kanarwey (Kurdish: وەستا فاروق کەناروێی) (born 1 January 1963), is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who is the current president of the Veteran Association of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Early life
Wasta Faruq was born in a village named Kanarwe in Sharbazher District, in a poor family. In 1966, his family moved to Sulaymaniyah until 1974 due to the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War, and moved back to Sulaymaniyah in 1978. Because of his family's unstable financial situation, he couldn’t go to school and started working in construction and that's were he got his nickname Wasta Faruq. In his teenage years, he joined Marx Lenin Kurdistan.

Peshmarga
In the end of 1982 he was forced to become a soldier in Iran-Iraq War. After 3 days there, Wasta Faruq with a friend named Serwan, decided to leave the fight because they didn't want to die fighting for Iraq. They want to die fighting for Kurdistan even though whoever ran away from the war at that time was executed. Right after that, they joined a group of Peshmerga’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Wasta Faruq participated in many wars against Saddam Hussein Baath Party, until he was captured in 1991 with two other Peshmerga with one of them was his older brother Salar Aziz. He was rescued during the 1991 Kurd uprisings. One day later, he was injured in Kirkuk.

Political career
Wasta Faruq founded the Veteran Association of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in 2006 approved by Jalal Talabani for those who was Peshmerga from the day they started until 1991.