Budapest (MTI) – An anthology of Iraqi Kurdish poems, published in Hungarian by the Balassi Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was presented at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on Thursday.
István Ijgyártó, the state secretary responsible for culture and cultural diplomacy, called the volume a cornerstone in Hungarian-Kurdish relations. The anthology, he said, includes mainly Iraqi Kurdish poems and also carries some works by Syrian Kurdish poets.
Ijgyarto noted that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Iraqi Kurdistan’s President Massoud Barzani had agreed in May 2015 to establish programmes to deepen knowledge of each other’s cultures.
Efforts to bring the two nations together include the Kurdish town of Roanduz naming its main street after 19th-century Hungarian revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth, the Eötvös Lóránd University of Budapest fostering relationships with four Iraqi Kurd universities and Hungarian scholarships offered to thirty Kurd students. Hungary is also a dedicated advocate of protecting the region’s archaeological heritage, he said.
Kalid Doski, cultural and youth minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, thanked the Hungarian people and government for their support in fighting the Islamic State terrorist organisation and for the work of Hungarian archaeologists in the region. To expand already thriving relationships in educational and military projects, the two nations now intend to forge stronger ties in the arts too, the minister said.
Source: MTI
