Inauguration of office in Berlin to support the Kurdish National Council’s diplomatic interests

On March 8, 2017, a new office as part of the project “Beyond Geneva-III – support for the Kurdish National Council in Syria”, funded by the German Foreign Ministry and the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IfA), has been opened in central Berlin. The office’s main assignment is to support the Kurdish National Council’s (KNC) diplomatic cause and to communicate its ideas on creating a democratic, federal and secular Syria. Owing to this purposes, the office’s translated title is “Capacity Building: Kurdish National Council in Syria”.

In the presence of numerous representatives of Syrian and international politics and the international press, the office was disclosed by Ibrahim Biro, the KNC’s president, and ambassador Andreas Krüger of the German Foreign Ministry’s department for Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Anti-IS strategy.

The inauguration was attended by Dilshad Barzani, the Kurdistan Regional Government ̶ Iraq’s representative to Germany, David D. Oswald, representative of the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Dr. Bassam Abdullah, representative of the Syrian National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (Etilaf), Riad Seif, Syrian civil rights activist, and Pelican Mourad of the German Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, amongst others.

Interested and high ranking audience listening to the addresses

In addition to Ibrahim Biro and ambassador Andreas Krüger, Kamiran Hajo, chairman of the KNC’s foreign relations committee, and Eva Savelsberg, head of the European Centre for Kurdish Studies, spoke at the inauguration. The speakers expect that the office will improve the KNC’s representation in the negotiation processes and support a more effective cooperation with its local and international partners in the future.

Ibrahim Biro, Rezan Shaikhmus (forground), the KNC’s representative to Europe, and the delegation, returned from the USA, speak in front of Berlin’s Kurdish Community

The Kurdish community of Berlin welcomed the KNC’s representatives in a large crowd

Following the formal inauguration ceremony, a launch event for members of the Kurdish Community in Berlin was held. Attended by around 170 guests, Ibrahim Biro, Kamiran Hajo und Siamend Hajo, member of the KNC’s foreign relations committee, discussed recent developments of the situation in Syria and their current visit to the USA.

Ambassador Krüger keeps a piece of the inaugurational ribbon

Capacity Buidling: Kurdischer Nationalrat in Syrien
Berlin, March 2017