The Kurdistan Region’s tourism sector has been told to temporarily suspend intake of foreign visitors amid the spread of coronavirus in the Middle East, Erbil Governor Firsat Sofi said in a Wednesday press conference. Vehicle entry from Iran into the Kurdistan Region is also prohibited, with the exception of fuel tankers, whose drivers will be subject to screening for the virus. Bashdar, an Iraqi Kurdish driver at Haji Omaran border crossing, told Rudaw’s Bakhtyar Qadir that contact between Kurdistan Region and Iranian drivers has been prohibited by Kurdish border authorities. Drivers gathered at the Kurdistan Region-Iran border crossing of Haji Omaran, waiting for an expected Erbil provincial council decision for the crossing to be reopened. Around 1000 Kurdish tourists who have returned from Iran in recent days are being quarantined in hotels in Soran, Rawanduz and Jundiyan, among other places, according to Qadir. Movement across the border is not completely restricted, with Iranians in the Kurdistan Region who arrived before the outbreak permitted to go back to Iran, Qadir said.
