ERBIL, Iraq: The body of Kurdish leader and ex-Iraqi president Jalal Talabani arrived on Friday in Sulaimaniya, his home city in northern Iraq, from Germany where he died on Tuesday at age 83, live footage on Iraqi state TV showed.
The Iraqi Airways plane transporting Talabani’s coffin was exempted from a ban on international flights imposed a week ago by the Iraqi government on the Kurdistan region in retaliation for voting for independence last month.
Talabani, a veteran leader of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination, stepped down as president in 2014, after a long period of treatment following a stroke in 2012.