ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A bust of renowned Kurdish poet Sherko Bekas was unveiled at a public place in the city of Qamishli, in Syrian Kurdistan-Rojava on Monday.

The project was sponsored by the Cizire Intellectuals Association at the Reading Garden in Gharbi neighborhood.

The ceremony was titled Reading Renews the Society.

"The aim of opening this garden is to encourage reading among the young  and the society as a whole," said the association said in a statement.

The place houses the statues and busts of other Kurdish poets such as Osman Sabri, Ciger Khuwen and Musa Antar.

The garden also houses a library containing Kurdish, Arabic, English and  Turkish books.

Bekas, born in 1940 in Sulaimani, was the son of Kurdish poet Fayaq Bekas. He died of cancer in Stockholm in 2013.

He published his first collection of poetry, Trifay Halbast (Light of Poetry), in 1968.

He was the first Minister of Culture in the first Kurdistan Regional Government cabinet in 1992. He also founded Sardam publishing house.