Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq - (KRG.org) – Minister Falah Mustafa received a Polish delegation who were visiting the Kurdistan Region to attend three days of commemorative events marking twenty five years since the genocidal attack on Halabja. The visit by the delegation comes a week after the new consul to Poland arrived in the Kurdistan Region.

Speaking on behalf of the Polish delegation, the Chairman of the Economic Committee of the Wielkopolska Region, Mr. Waldemar Witkowski said, “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us and for the invitation to come to attend the twenty five year commemoration of the attack on Halabja. It was like a live lesson in history and unfortunately we have seen similar tragedies in our history.”

The Head of the KRG Department of Foreign Relations, Minister Falah Mustafa, welcomed the Polish delegation and thanked them for visiting the Kurdistan Region to participate in the three days commemorating the acts of genocide against the Kurds during the notorious Anfal campaign. Minister Mustafa said, “Today we are lucky to have friends from around the globe and the international community but back then we were ignored and we hoped that you can spread the message of what you saw to people back in Poland.”

Mr. Witkowski spoke about the progress in terms of economic development that the delegation has seen during their stay in Kurdistan and said that a delegation will be visiting in April as there is a lot of interest from Wielkopolska in the Kurdistan Region. He stated, “The fact that Poland has opened a Consulate here shows the importance that Poland places on establishing relations with the Kurdistan Region. I hope that our relationship will evolve and continue to grow.”

Minister Mustafa said that the KRG was pleased with the level of the relationship with Poland and paid tribute to the role played by the KRG Representative to Poland, Mr. Ziyad Raoof. He added, “We want to have stronger relations with Poland as a whole and we have had several high level delegations visit us already. We can benefit from your expertise particularly in the judiciary, rule of law, banking, finance, agriculture and industry.”

Also present in the meeting were the Deputy Marshall of the Wielkopolska Region, Mr. Leszk Wojtaszak along with others from the Wielkopolska Region and the KRG Representative to Poland, Mr. Ziyad Raoof.