Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited on Thursday Erbil, his first trip to the capital of the Kurdistan after the autonomous region voted in a popular poll in September for independence from Iraq, a step Baghdad deemed unconstitutional.
Nechirvan Barzani, the premier of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) received the PM at Erbil International Airport.
Abadi said, “Today, we are under the tent of Iraq.”
The PM is in Erbil to campaign for his Nasr (Victory) Alliance, telling supporters that a Kurdish-Arab brotherhood is permanent and will persist.
“The heroes of the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army confronted ISIS together and shared the suffering to achieve victory. Today we absolutely need this unity,” he said.
This is the first meeting in Erbil between the Iraqi and Kurdish leaders since Abadi's declaration of the liberation of Mosul from ISIS in July 2017.
Abadi said, "We don't differentiate between a citizen and another. This is our approach, ethics and standing policy.”
The Iraqi PM arrived in Erbil from Sulaymaniyah, the Kurdish region’s second largest city, which he visited Wednesday also as part of his electoral campaign.
Abadi is hoping to win another term as prime minister at the head of the Victory Alliance following May’s parliamentary polls.
He plans to later visit the oil-rich province of Kirkuk.
Since early this week, Abadi visited several provinces, including Anbar and Nineveh, where he stopped in the city of Mosul and the Joint Operations Command.
Meanwhile, Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Region Security Council and a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) lashed out on Thursday at the Iraqi government and Kurdish candidates who are allying with it.
“How can those who opposed the referendum defend our rights in Baghdad,” he asked.
Barzani told an audience of young supporters in Erbil on Thursday the Kurdistan Region never wished to fight with other parties in Iraq.
