Turkey appoints consul to Erbil

The Foreign Ministry has appointed young diplomat Aydın Selcen as consul to Erbil, the capital of Iraq's regional Kurdish administration, in line with a decision to improve and advance relations with the administration in northern Iraq taken by the National Security Council (NSC). Turkey opening a consulate was decided at last year's high-level strategic cooperation committee meeting chaired by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Iraqi counterpart Nouri al-Maliki. Selcen will arrive in Erbil on March 15 in the wake of the Iraqi general elections set for this coming Sunday.