ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - About 100 traders have answered a call to boycott Iranian goods less than two weeks after Iran fired ballistic missiles at Erbil, killing a Kurdish businessman.
“As of now, about 100 businessmen in the Kurdistan Region have decided to boycott Iranian products,” Gaylan Haji Said, president of the Erbil Chamber of Commerce, told Rudaw on Friday.
The boycott so far has made a minor impact on the volume of trade with Iran, according to Said, but he expects it will be “more evident in the upcoming weeks and months.”
"In the near future, ordinary citizens will notice the impact of the boycott in markets and places selling Iranian goods,” he said.
The Erbil Chamber of Commerce last week called for a boycott of Iranian products in protest of Tehran’s deadly missile attacks on the Kurdish capital.
On January 15, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ten ballistic missiles toward Erbil under the pretext of targeting the “spy headquarters” of anti-Iran groups. The strike killed Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayee and three other people. Dizayee’s mansion, destroyed in the attack, was described by Tehran as a Mossad base - a claim denied by Kurdish and Iraqi officials.
Tehran’s Chamber of Commerce on Monday stated that it was “deeply saddened” by the call for the Kurdistan Region to cut economic and trade ties with Iran and asked for the Erbil Chamber of Commerce to rethink the move and “look to the future with determination and open hearts.”
Many social media users have also called for a boycott of Iranian goods, with protests in Erbil, Soran, and Duhok demanding the same thing.
Duhok’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday said in a statement that it will seek alternatives to Iranian imports.
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