Kurdistan
Background: Tehran's Azadi Tower. Front: Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani. Graphic: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani is scheduled to visit Tehran on Sunday for meetings with the country’s top leaders, marking his fifth trip to Iran in ten years.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi, and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf are some of the names President Barzani is expected to meet with in Tehran, among other top officials.
The trip comes days after Barzani visited Baghdad for discussions with Iraqi officials on paying the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants and upcoming parliamentary elections.
President Barzani last visited Iran in August 2021 to attend Raisi’s inauguration ceremony.
The Kurdistan Region and Iran enjoy good ties. During a forum in Sulaimani in April, Barzani said that Iran contributed to the economic “success” of the Kurdistan Region.
But that relationship has been strained by Tehran’s attacks on exiled Kurdish groups and deadly missile strikes on locations that it alleged were Mossad bases in the Region.
In January, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ten ballistic missiles at what it alleged was a Mossad base in the family home of a Kurdish businessman, killing four people, including an 11-month-old baby.
Days before the attack, President Barzani had said that the Kurdistan Region will not become a “source of threat” to Iran. Erbil has repeatedly denied the existence of Israeli bases within Kurdistan Region’s borders.
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