Barzani: Kurdistan supports establishment of an independent Palestinian state

Shafaq News/ The Kurdistan Region supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, President Nechirvan Barzani said in a keynote speech he delivered before the Sulaymaniyah Forum earlier today, Wednesday.

"Sulaymaniyah Forum takes place under a very sensitive regional and global situation," he said. "Tensions, violence, and war have taken over the Middle East."

"There is a huge danger of the security and stability of the region and further escalation," Barzani noted. "Peace is the pathway to the success of a country, not war."

"The Kurdistan Region supports the creation of an independent Palestinian state,” President Barzani said.

"The war of al-Qaeda and ISIS would not have happened if we had been united inside Iraq," President Barzani said, adding that political turmoil resulted in Iraqi blood being needlessly spilled.

The president said that "the Iraqi people have felt the changes" made by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's government, expressing his support for its efforts to keep making "positive change".

"Whoever visited Kurdistan thirty years ago, if they visit Kurdistan now they will not recognize it,” Barzani continued.

"A strong Iraq needs the existence of a strong Kurdistan Region," he stated, adding that the same applies vice-versa.

Over the past two years, relations between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have been hindered over several top rulings by Iraq’s top court which have threatened the Region's autonomy, as well as over budget issues and the payment of civil servant salaries

"The nation should bring us all together. Forces and political parties come and go, but a nation will always stay," he continued. "Kurdistan is bigger than all of us."