Masrour Barzani congratulates Boris Johnson on 'historic win' in UK election

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Saturday congratulated Boris Johnson on his election as the new British Prime Minister.

“I congratulate you for this historic win,” Prime Minister Barzani said in a statement, adding he hoped the Kurdistan Region and the United Kingdom could "work together to develop their relationship further.”

The Conservative Party, led by Johnson in the UK’s parliamentary election, was able to win by a landslide victory and secured the majority of seats in the parliament in Thursday’s general election. 

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During his time as the Mayor of London, Johnson visited the Kurdistan Region and Peshmerga forces at the front lines in the fight against the so-called Islamic State.

The British leader previously commended the role of the Kurdish Peshmerga in defeating the Islamic State in an interview with Kurdistan 24 in September 2017, days before the historic independence referendum.

Johnson also notably encouraged then-Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to lift an airport ban on the autonomous Kurdish region, one of many punitive measures Baghdad had enforced on the Kurdistan Region in response to the referendum.       

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany