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Mr. Talabani during a visit to France in 2009.
Christophe Ena/Associated Press; thumbnail, Scott Nelson for The New York Times, 2006
Jalal Talabani
Died on October 3, 2017 at age 83
Mr. Talabani was the Kurdish leader who used pragmatism, guile and an outsize personality to navigate a hazardous course in Mideast politics, surviving guerrilla war, the terrors of Saddam Hussein and shifting alliances to become the first president of Iraq under its postwar Constitution.
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.