ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Sulaimani Governor Haval Abubakir said on Sunday that the Kurdistan Region’s governors signed several deals during a recent visit to Iran, where they also met President Masoud Pezeshkian.
“Joint memorandums of understanding were made with all provinces. We have not made our memorandum and meetings and visits only on commercial and economic matters, but we have done it on three axes,” Abubakir told Rudaw.
“The first is economic and commercial, the second is cultural and social, and the third is scientific and technological,” he explained.
A delegation of Kurdistan Region governors, including Abubakr, Erbil Governor Omed Xoshnaw, Duhok Governor Ali Tatar, and Halabja Governor Nuxsha Nasih, traveled to Iran last week to meet their counterparts from Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan provinces in western Iran (Rojhelat).
On Thursday, they met with Iranian President Pezeshkian in Tehran.
Abubakr emphasized that all the meetings were conducted in Kurdish, even with the president himself.
“Usually he has meetings with heads of state for only a quarter to twenty minutes, but our meeting extended for two hours, and we conversed in the Kurdish language," he said, adding that the document from the Pezeshkian meeting was written in Kurdish with a Persian subsection.
All four governors signed the agreement in both Kurdish and Persian, Abubakir added, and the meeting with Tehran Governor Mohammad-Sadegh Motamedian was also conducted in Kurdish.
Xoshnaw on Thursday said that in their meeting with Pezeshkian, the Iranian president expressed satisfaction with the strong relations between Iran and the Kurdistan Region’s neighboring provinces and reaffirmed his support for their mutual agreements.
Pezeshkian highlighted the deep cultural and familial ties across the Iran-Kurdistan Region border, stressing the importance of sustainable development to strengthen mutual relations.
He further mentioned that the governors expressed the need for further emphasis on the border crossings between the Kurdistan Region and Iran, noting that six of the border gates are located within Sulaimani’s borders.
“We requested that those gates that exist in Iraq and in Kurdistan be given their special emphasis as before,” Abubakir said.
Sulaimani will host the summit between the Kurdistan Region and Rojhelat’s governors next year, according to Abubakir.
Trade ties between Erbil and Tehran are extensive and economically vital, with annual trade between the Kurdistan Region and Iran reaching significant figures, often cited around $6 billion.
The robust exchange is facilitated through three main border crossings - Haji Omaran, Bashmakh, and Parvizkhan - and several other smaller or unofficial crossings, through which Iran primarily exports food products, construction materials, manufactured goods, and petrochemicals.
Both sides are actively working to enhance these economic relations and overcome obstacles through high-level visits, agreements, the potential establishment of joint free zones, and a notable presence of Iranian companies in the Kurdistan Region.
