Barzani commemorates Mitterand, says Kurdistan stands with France

ERBIL (K24) - At a ceremony held in the memory of the late French first lady Danielle Mitterrand in Erbil, the President of the Kurdistan Region Massoud Barzani said she was "a mother to Kurds."

He retold of how he met her for the first time in Paris in 1992. Barzani said when he wanted to talk about the Kurdish struggle in that meeting with her, she took the first opportunity and began telling them what she saw at refugee camps that Kurds were staying at in Turkey. Having newly returned from those camps, she started crying. Barzani recalled, "It was the first time I saw a foreigner weeping for Kurds.”

President Barzani told the attendees of the ceremony that "we are deeply indebted to Madame Mitterrand and her service to Kurdish people." 

“She told me,” Barzani remembered, "tell your people that President François Mitterrand is a friend of yours, and he is with you." 

"Today, we Kurds are with the people and the government of France against terrorists who attacked Paris," he said. "They have no place in France or Kurdistan," he continued. 

The Consul General of France in Erbil, Alain Guépratte, too addressed the audience made up of politicians, Peshmerga generals, and civilians that attended the commemoration. Alain Guépratte spoke in Kurdish and French, in turns. He said Madame Mitterrand would be "very happy" if she saw the political and social advancements Kurdistan has made so far. 

Danielle Mitterand, the late widow of the deceased former Socialist French President François Mitterrand, was a long-time friend of Kurds. She supported Kurdish political aspirations and organised aid campaigns when hundreds of thousands of Kurds were escaping to the mountains during the genocidal Anfal military campaign by the Iraqi Baathi government in the early 1990s. 

She died on 22 November 2011, aged 87 in Paris.