ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and former Iraqi president, is due to visit Tehran next week on a friendly visit, according to a statement released by the party's media office.
He is due to depart from Sulaimani and will stay in Iran for a few days. The visit is at the invitation of Iranian officials.
Talabani's visit comes amid strained relations between Erbil and Tehran over Iranian shelling of armed Kurdish groups inside the Kurdistan Region's border and Iran's cutting the flow of a trans-border river, all in the shadow of the Kurdistan Region's independence aspirations and planned referendum.
While Talabani remains the official head of PUK, he has largely disappeared from the country's political scene since suffering a stroke in December 2012.
The PUK enjoys good relations with Iran.
He is due to depart from Sulaimani and will stay in Iran for a few days. The visit is at the invitation of Iranian officials.
The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative in Tehran, Nazim Dabagh, told Rudaw he was “unaware that Mam Jalal will arrive in the Islamic Republic of Iran on a visit next week.”
Talabani's visit comes amid strained relations between Erbil and Tehran over Iranian shelling of armed Kurdish groups inside the Kurdistan Region's border and Iran's cutting the flow of a trans-border river, all in the shadow of the Kurdistan Region's independence aspirations and planned referendum.
While Talabani remains the official head of PUK, he has largely disappeared from the country's political scene since suffering a stroke in December 2012.
The PUK enjoys good relations with Iran.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment