Barzani paid ‘private’ visit to İstanbul, says minister

In response to a question at a joint press conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Thursday, Davutoğlu said Barzani, the former prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, paid a private visit to Turkey along with his family, like many other Iraqi leaders.

“In thias sense, İstanbul is a city where everybody takes refuge to relax,” Davutoğlu said, noting that Barzani’s visit was not political in nature.

After serving as the first prime minister of the Kurdish region since the US invasion of Iraq and after the historic 2006 unification agreement between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Barzani late last month handed over his duty to Barham Salih, who most recently served as Iraq’s deputy prime minister to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Last week, Davutoğlu paid a landmark visit to the Iraqi Kurdish region, traveling to three cities, including Arbil, the regional capital of the largely autonomous Kurdish region. In addition to the consulates general opened in Mosul and Basra during Davutoğlu’s visit, Turkey is also planning to open consulates in Kirkuk and Arbil.