Iraqi products appealed to all at Arbil fair

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: The head of the Iraqi Ministry of Industry & Minerals’ booth at the 4th Arbil International Fair said that Iraqi products have attracted a large number of local and foreign visitors. “A total of 24 of the ministry’s companies participated in the fair, where they displayed their products and gained public attention,” Haytham Kanaan told IraqiNews.com. The Iraqi products included asthma inhalers and injections for ovarian cancer, Kanaan pointed out. Arbil, also written Erbil or Irbil, is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited in the world and is one of the largest cities in Iraq. The city lies eighty kilometers (fifty miles) east of Mosul. In 2005, its estimated population was 990,000 inhabitants. The city is the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region and the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). It hosts the headquarters of the Kurdistan region ministers and parliament. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, only isolated, sporadic violence has hit Arbil, unlike many other areas of Iraq. Parallel bomb attacks against the Eid celebrations arranged by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan RegionG President Massoud Barazani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) killed 109 people on February 1, 2004. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamist group Ansar al-Sunnah, and stated to be in solidarity with the Kurdish Islamist faction Ansar al-Islam. Another bombing on May 4, 2005 killed 60 civilians. Despite these bombings the population generally feels safe. SS (S) 1