By Mazin Baqal

ERBIL, Iraq

Northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) is keen to maintain good relations with Ankara, KRG spokesman Safeen Dizayee said Thursday.

“Without a doubt, we have very good relations with Turkey,” Dizayee said while inspecting a new school in Erbil -- the KRG’s administrative capital -- run by Turkey’s Maarif Foundation.

“And we want to maintain these good relations in all fields,” he told Anadolu Agency.

The KRG, Dizayee added, “would also like to benefit more from Turkey’s experience in the educational and cultural arenas”.

“Turkey is highly developed in these areas -- areas to which we attach great importance,” he said.

Dizayee added that a delegation from the Maarif Foundation had recently met with KRG Education Minister Pishtiwan Sadiq in Erbil to discuss issues related to schools in the region that had been owned and operated by the notorious FETO group, which orchestrated a failed coup attempt against the Turkish government in mid-2016.

The KRG spokesman also voiced his pleasure with the Turkish delegation’s visit to Erbil, which included AK Party lawmaker (for Diyarbakir) Mehmet Mehdi Eker.

Later Thursday, the Maarif Foundation’s new international school in Erbil will be officially inaugurated.