On December 12 Massoud Barazani, president of the Kurdish semi-autonomous region of Iraq, threw a bombshell at the opening session of the 13th…
Arbil (also written Erbil or Irbil or Arbela) is the third-largest city in Iraq after Baghdad and Mosul. The city lies eighty kilometres (fifty miles) east of Mosul, and is the capital of Kurdistan Autonomous Region and the Kurdistan Regional Government and the biggest Kurdish city in the world. Urban life at Arbil can be dated back to at least the twenty-third century BC. The city has been under the rule of many regional powers during that time, such as the Assyrians, the Persians, Sasanians, Arabs, and Ottomans. The city's archaeological museum contains only pre-Islamic objects.






















