KRG PM, Italian Defense Minister highlight bilateral efforts in fight against IS

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani, and Italian Defense Minister, Elisabetta Trenta, highlighted on Sunday bilateral cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State (IS).

The words were exchanged during a meeting between the two officials in Erbil hours after Trenta arrived in the Kurdistan Region capital following her visit to Baghdad.

The Defense Minister “thanked the [KRG], Peshmerga, and people of Kurdistan for their daring confrontation with the threat of Da’esh,” a statement by Barzani’s press office read, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Italian instructors who train Kurdish Peshmerga forces to face IS are part of experts from nine different countries that make up the Kurdistan Training Coordination Center (KTCC).

During the meeting, Trenta reassured the Kurdistan Region of Italy’s continued humanitarian and military support and further development of bilateral ties.

Barzani, in turn, thanked Italy’s assistance to Kurdistan as part of the US-led Coalition against IS, the KRG statement added.

The PM also expressed his gratitude to Italy for sending its companies to maintain the Mosul Dam, which international engineers have long warned of its possible collapse due to engineering problems and decades of chronically poor maintenance.

In 2016, the Ministry of Water Resources signed an agreement with the Italian Trevi Company to carry out a project to rehabilitate and maintain the dam.

The latest political developments in Iraq and the formation of the new Iraqi and KRG governments were another part of the meeting, the statement concluded.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany