ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Erbil governor on Wednesday announced that this year’s Newroz celebrations will be held at the main building of the Paris municipality. “This year, the Kurdish New Year (Newroz) celebrations will be held in the main building of the Paris municipality,” Omed Koshnaw said in a statement after receiving Ali Dolamari, Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative in Paris. They discussed arrangements to make in order to “deepen the friendly relations between the Kurdistan Region and France and gain more support from the French government and people,” the statement added. Hundreds of thousands of people from the Kurdistan Region, as well as Kurds in Turkey, Iran, and Syria, celebrate Newroz. The event symbolizes freedom from tyranny and resistance. Kurds celebrate Newroz from March 21-23 by picnicking in the countryside and lighting bonfires with family and loved ones. The occasion is known as the Kurdish New Year. Khoshnaw and Dolamari also “discussed the development of relations between Erbil and Paris within the framework of the sisterhood Memorandum of Understanding [MoU] between the two cities,” while also emphasizing “the further development and strengthening of relations between the Kurdistan Region and France.” In July 2019, the two capitals became sister cities. The relationship between the Kurds and France goes back to the 1980s. Danielle Mitterrand, first lady of France from 1981 to 1995, advocated for Kurds suffering under the regime of Saddam Hussein and was instrumental in campaigning for the no-fly zone that allowed the Kurdistan Region to develop its current autonomy. She was affectionately known as the “Mother of Kurds”, and inaugurated the first Kurdish parliament in 1992. France was one of the first countries to open a consulate in the Kurdish capital of Erbil after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 and played a critical role in helping Kurds both in Iraq and in Syria in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS).
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