Dignitaries gather in Kurd city for Iraq ex-president’s funeral

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: Iraqi Kurdish leaders were joined by representatives of the Baghdad government yesterday for the funeral of Iraqi ex- president Jalal Talabani, a veteran of the struggle for Kurdish self-rule, an AFP journalist reported.

Talabani died in Germany on Tuesday aged 83, barely a week after an Iraqi Kurdish vote for independence sparked a crisis in the autonomous Kurdish region’s relations with Baghdad.

His body was flown home from Germany to the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, his longtime fiefdom, where a red carpet and a guard of honour awaited on the tarmac.

During a decades-long political career, Talabani was a key figure in Iraqi Kurdish politics before becoming federal president from 2005 to 2014. Talabani’s coffin was brought off the plane, draped in the red, white, green and yellow colours of the Kurdish f lag, as the Iraqi national anthem and then the Kurdish anthem were played.

Iraqi Kurdish president Massoud Barzani and prime minister Nechirvan Barzani awaited the coffin.

Iraqi President Fuad Massum, also a Kurd, Interior Minister Qassem al- Araji, a Shiite, and parliament speaker Salim alJuburi, a Sunni Arab, represented the Baghdad government. They were joined by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as well as Kurdish representatives from Iran, Syria and Turkey.

Talabani’s death, following a decades- old struggle for Kurdish statehood, came after Iraq’s Kurds voted 92.7 per cent in favour of independence in the Sept 25 referendum. The vote was rejected as illegal by the federal government in Baghdad as well as by Iraq’s neighbours.

Baghdad retaliated last week by banning all international flights in and out of the Kurdish autonomous region except for humanitarian cases. — AFP