Kurdistan Region PM meets German gov. delegation to talk Peshmerga support, ISIS threat

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Monday received a delegation from the German Parliament to discuss the continued support for the Peshmerga and the ongoing threat of the so-called Islamic State.

The German parliamentary delegation consisted of Markus Grübel, Commissioner for Global Freedom of Religion from the German government’s Development Ministry, as well as Jürgen Hardt, a Member of Parliament for the Christian Democratic Union.

Also in attendance were the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Head of Department of Foreign Relations, Safeen Dizayee, the KRG’s representative to Germany, Dilshad Barzani, and the German Consul-General in Erbil, Barbara Wolf.

During the meeting, Prime Minister Barzani thanked the German government and parliament following its decision to resume the training of Peshmerga forces after a temporary halt amid escalating tensions in the region, a statement on the KRG website read.

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The Kurdish leader stressed the importance that the international coalition continues to support the Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), “especially since ISIS is a latent danger in some areas of Iraq.”

On his part, Grübel and his delegation “pointed to the status of the Kurdistan Region as an important stabilizing factor for Iraq and the region,” the KRG statement said.

The German officials also expressed Germany’s “readiness to strengthen relations, especially in trade and investment.”