Barzani visits US: this time could be different

Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan region, first went to America in October 2008 and met George W Bush. The meeting was about national peace, especially after conflicts between tribes had increased

A year later, in December 2009, Barzani went to America again and met Barack Obama, the newly elected American president, for the first time. He went again in 2012 and, in 2014, cancelled a trip allegedly to protest the two main Kurdish political parties being named on a US blacklist. 

Now in Washington and having met with Barack Obama at the White House, Barzani is set to give a keynote address on the future of Iraqi Kurdistan.