Kosrat Rasul will return to Kurdistan today/Saturday

[Anthea]

Acting leader of PUK Kosrat Rasul will return to Kurdistan Saturday

The acting leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is due to return to the Kurdistan Region almost two months after he was flown to Germany to receive medical treatment.

Masoud Mala Hamza, Kosrat Rasul's press secretary, told Rudaw “Mr Kosrat will arrive at Sulaimani airport at 4 pm and will be received by the PUK leadership and politburo. He will then head to the politburo headquarters.”

“The procession has been arranged by the politburo and people can come to the airport to receive him. Representatives of political parties too might be present at the airport to receive Mr Kosrat,” he added.

On Thursday, in a special interview with Rudaw, head of the PUK politburo executive body Mala Bakhtiar confirmed that “the PUK’s first deputy secretary general, Kosrat Rasul, will return to Kurdistan in good health on Saturday, January 6, 2018.”

Rasul fell ill in early November in Sulaimani a day after attending the late PUK founder Jalal Talabani’s memorial service. He underwent an emergency surgery in Sulaimani on November 11 for a stoppage of blood flow to his small intestine and a second surgery on December 15, a month after he was flown to Berlin for further treatment.

Since he had been receiving medical treatment in Berlin, many Kurdish politicians visited him to check on his health, chief among them Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and his deputy Qubad Talabani at the tail end of a diplomatic trip to France where they met with President Emmanuel Macron.

Rasul became the PUK's acting head after the death of the party's founder and leader Jalal Talabani in early October.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/060120181