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Kurdistan
Marielle de Sarnez in a meeting with President of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani. Photo: social media
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Senior officials in the Kurdistan Region have paid tribute to Marielle de Sarnez, a French politician and ‘close friend of Kurdistan’ who died of cancer on Wednesday.
De Sarnez, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly and a politician of the centrist Democratic Movement (MoDem), was suffering from leukemia. She died in Paris, at the age of 69.
The former minister for European Affairs was known for expressing pro-Kurdish views, and politicians including President of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani took to Twitter to express their condolences.
“I’m saddened by the passing of Marielle de Sarnez… My heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones“, said Barzani, who met de Sarnez when she visited Iraq and the Kurdistan Region in 2018.
Hemin Hawrami, deputy speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament, called her “a very close friend of Kurdistan” who was “passionate for stronger ties" between France and the Kurdistan Region.
“Our deepest condolences to her family & colleagues. RIP,” Hawrami said.
De Sarnez was vocal in her support for Kurds in Syria – particularly the Kurdish-led, multi-ethnic Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which she praised on numerous occasions for its role in the defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS). She was headed a delegation of French politicians who travelled to northern Syria in June 2019. She visited a cemetery in Kobane, a Kurdish town besieged by ISIS in 2014, and met with SDF personnel, offering “immense recognition” for the sacrifices they made in the war against the militant group.
“France has been at your side throughout this, and France will continue to be at your side for the reconstruction and the stabilisation of this region,” she told journalists in the town of Ain Issa.
“I want to give our immense recognition for the sacrifices they made, sacrifices that go beyond the borders of this part of the world – France in particular recognises this, Europe in particular recognises this.”
When Turkey invaded northern Syria in October 2019, de Sarnez initiated a proposition to condemn Ankara for its invasion, passed unanimously by the lower house of parliament. She called US president Donald Trump’s decision to greenlight the invasion a “betrayal”, and urged the government to sanction Turkey to bring about “the immediate end to the military offensive”.
“I will never forget, and we will never forget, the bravery and sacrifice of the Syrian Democratic Forces, of the young men and women who defeated Daesh [Islamic State], at their own peril. They fought for us too,” she told parliament on October 15, 2019.
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