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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said Sunday that a new delegation office of the European Union in the Kurdistan region was a “monumental step” toward closer cooperation with Erbil.
In a speech at the opening ceremony, he also called on the EU to help on international recognition of a genocide against Kurdish Yazidis by the Islamic State group (ISIS), and greater military and civic help to the Kurds.
“The increase in the number of consulates and offices of foreign countries in the Kurdistan region is a positive reflection of the region’s politics toward the world,” Barzani said, in a ceremony attended by Kurdish and EU officials.
“The EU countries are working to implement human rights, even outside their own countries. The Kurdistan region can take advantage of their experience on the role of women in society, human rights, the democracy consolidation and strengthening of aspects of the supremacy of law,” Barzani said.
“Progress has been made politically and economically between the Kurdistan region and the EU,” he added, turning his plea for military support in the fight against ISIS.
“This war has been imposed on the Kurdish nation,” he reminded throughout his speech.
“The EU can continue to help us in the fight against terror because Kurdistan is fighting the most barbaric terrorist group in the world along its borders for more than a year,” Barzani noted.
“The Peshmerga fight on behalf of the world for a free world,” he declared, calling on European countries to keep up supplies of proficient weapons.
“The Peshmerga have been defending all different people in Kurdistan, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds,” the prime minister reminded the world.
He called on the EU to work on recognition of a genocide committed against Yazidi Kurds last August, when ISIS attacked the city and went on a rampage of killing, kidnapping, looting and rape.
“Until now many mass graves have been unearthed, and on August 13, 67 corpses were buried in a procession in which I took part,” said Barzani, “Twelve mass graves have been uncovered till now, and we expect more are yet to be found.”
The prime minister said the Kurdistan region would help document ISIS brutalities against Yazidis and urged the EU high commission to seriously take up on filing a complaint at the International Court at the Hague to issue verdicts against perpetrators of the Shingal massacre against the Yazidis.
Earlier Sunday, the Department of Foreign Relations of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced that the EU delegation office in Erbil would be a major benefit for the region's foreign policy and is being launched at an especially critical moment in Kurdish history.
The opening finally came after a long process of negotiation and documentation with the Foreign Ministry of the central government of Iraq in Baghdad.
Thirty-three countries now have representative offices in Erbil, including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
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