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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - France's Consul General to Erbil Yann Braem told Rudaw his country’s investment in the Kurdistan Region amounts to $3 billion in various sectors, adding that they are planning to open the "largest" plant nursery in the Middle East in Erbil.
“We have approximately 40 business companies working in Kurdistan or working with Kurdistan,” Braem told Rudaw’s Nma Nabaz during an interview aired on Wednesday.
He also said that his country’s direct investment in the Region is $3 billion.
“We have big companies,” he noted, mentioning Carrefour hypermarkets, Danone dairy products and others.
“We are planning to have… the biggest garden nursery [plant nursery] in all of the Middle East which will be set up in the Erbil area. We are just waiting for the final approvals,” the diplomat announced.
Erbil and Paris have been developing their political contacts over years, according to the consul general.
“Our president [Emmanuel Macron] is regularly speaking and having interactions with [Kurdistan Region] President Nechirvan Barzani, with Prime Minister Masrour Barzani,” he noted.
“We are now in a state of play where we really want to increase our engagement with Kurdistan,” he said, adding that his country is involved in many sectors, including cultural and educational ones.
The relationship between the Kurds and France goes back to the 1980s. Danielle Mitterrand, first lady of France from 1981 to 1995, advocated for Kurds suffering under the regime of Saddam Hussein and was instrumental in campaigning for the no-fly zone that allowed the Kurdistan Region to develop its current autonomy. She was affectionately known as the “Mother of Kurds”, and inaugurated the first Kurdish parliament in 1992.
France was one of the first countries to open a consulate in the Kurdish capital of Erbil after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 and played a critical role in helping Kurds both in Iraq and in Syria in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS).
ISIS seized control of vast swathes of Iraqi land in 2014 but it was declared territorially defeated in 2017. Despite the group’s lack of territorial control, it still continues to pose serious security risks through bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions in the country, particularly in areas disputed by Erbil and Baghdad.
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