ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Bastille Day, the national day of France, was marked in the Kurdistan Region capital Erbil on Saturday, with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani attending a ceremony organized by the French consulate.
Besides marking the anniversary of the 1789 French Revolution, consular staff also marked ten years since the French consulate opened in Erbil.
In a speech marking the occasion, French consul general Dominique Mas hailed political, economic and military relations between France and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Besides marking the anniversary of the 1789 French Revolution, consular staff also marked ten years since the French consulate opened in Erbil.
In a speech marking the occasion, French consul general Dominique Mas hailed political, economic and military relations between France and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
France is a member of the US led coalition to defeat ISIS. During the peak of the fight against the jihadist group, Paris assisted the Kurdish Peshmerga with training and weapons.
Relations between France and the Kurdistan Region entered a new page under former French President Francois Hollande. He visited Erbil twice while in office and former KRG president Masoud Barzani visited Paris four times.
Danielle Mitterrand, France’s First Lady in the 1980s and early 1990s, was a strong advocate of the Kurds and condemned their suffering under Saddam Hussein’s regime. She was instrumental in campaigning for the no-fly zone that effectively allowed the Kurdistan Region to develop its current autonomy. She is affectionately known as the Mother of Kurds, and inaugurated the first Kurdish parliament in 1992.
France was also among the first countries to open a consulate in the Kurdish capital Erbil after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, and it was one of the first nations to come to the assistance of the Kurds when they went to war with ISIS two years ago.
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