TEHRAN – President of Iraqi Kurdistan region Nechirvan Barzani has expressed appreciation for the support Iran provided Iraqi Kurdistan during times of crisis.

Barzani said on Thursday that Kurdistan will not support any country against Iran, whether it is Israel or others, according to Shafaq News. 

“Iran is a neighbor of Iraq, including Kurdistan, and it supported Kurdistan at various points, which we will never forget. And Kurdistan in the Iraqi political framework, continues the good relationship with Iran,” he said. 

Barzani pointed out that “the volume of exchange with Iran, except for energy, is more than ten billion dollars, and more than 60% of this number is through Kurdistan.”

He continued, “In any way, we do not help any country against Iran, neither Israel nor others, and Baghdad's policy is not to form relations with Israel, and we are committed to this policy.”

Iran and Iraq enjoy very good political and economic relations. Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) hosted an Iran-Iraq industrial cooperation conference on Monday evening. 

The conference was held in line with the development of commercial and industrial relations between the two countries.

Referring to the objectives of holding this conference, Mohammad-Sadeq Qanadzadeh, the TPO deputy head for the promotion of international businesses, said, “Expansion of economic and trade relations with countries is one of the priorities of economic and trade diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and since Iraq has been always one of our strategic partners, we are trying to maintain and increase the role we have played in the economic and industrial development of this country.”

Stating that currently, Iran's exports to Iraq is about $10.5 billion, he said, “Although the export of $10.5 billion is a new record, there is the capacity to increase trade between the two countries to $20 billion. Therefore, we are trying to quickly” compensate for “this delay with the help and cooperation of the private sector and reach commercial targets.”