KRG and Japan strengthen ties as new hydroelectric dam is built in Duhok

Dereluk Village, Duhok (K24) - In a ceremony on Thursday attended by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and the new-appointed Japanese ambassador in Iraq Fumio Iwai, the construction of Dereluk Dam and its power plant in Amedi district of Duhok Province was launched.

The 36-megawatt hydropower dam is estimated to cost $165 million USD and is being constructed along the Great Zab River. It is a joint KRG-Japanese project assisted and funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

In the ceremony held to launch the dam project in the picturesque village of Dereluk some 90 kilometers east of the city of Duhok, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani pointed out that Japan has been assisting and investing in Kurdistan since 2003. According to the Kurdistan Regional Government Cabinet website, the Government of Japan had allocated $7 billion USD for reconstruction in Iraq and Kurdistan since 2003. PM Barzani also thanked the Japanese government for its continuing humanitarian aid for refugees and IDPs in Kurdistan, which he said is more than $120 million USD over the last two years.

Speaking of the need to build more infrastructure in the Kurdistan Region, PM Barzani said that his government needs further international support and called on the Japanese government to help reconstruction efforts in the Yazidi Kurdish town of Sinjar [Shingal], liberated from the Islamic State group last week by Peshmerga and international coalition forces.

The Kurdistan Region and Japan are working on several other infrastructure projects in the region, namely Halabja water-related projects, the Erbil wastewater project.

In a meeting with the Kurdish Foreign Relations Minister Falah Mustafa, the Japanese Ambassador in Iraq Fumio Iwai said last Monday in Erbil that Japan will open a representation office in the Kurdistan Region next year.

(Chekdar Jamal contributed to this report from Dereluk, Duhok)