Michael Rigas, US Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, who arrived in Erbil on Wednesday, is set to inaugurate the new building, the State Department confirmed.
Built on a 206,000-square-meter site on the Erbil-Shaqlawa road, northeast of the Kurdish capital, the new US consulate building cost around $800 million, according to a March 2019 report by the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR).
During a September 2021 celebration of the structural completion, Robert Palladino, then US Consul General to Erbil, remarked, “The United States consulate will be big, really big. How big? 206,000 square meters.”
Palladino confirmed the building “will be the largest consulate in the world,” adding, "The reason the United States is building the largest consulate in the world here in Erbil is because the relationship between the United States and Kurdistan Region needs room to grow bigger.”
The foundation stone of the new consulate was laid by Kurdistan Region's then-Prime Minister and current President Nechirvan Barzani and Douglas Silliman, the then-US ambassador to Baghdad, in July 2018.
"We view this project today with great pleasure, as an external signal to the world that America wants to stay in Iraq, America wants to stay in Kurdistan, and America wants to develop its relations,” President Barzani then said, stressing the importance of such a move “for our nation, for Iraq, and for America."
President Barzani received US Deputy Secretary of State, Rigas, in Erbil on Wednesday, ahead of the inauguration ceremony.
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani received US Deputy Sec. of State Michael Rigas ahead of the opening of the world’s largest US Consulate in Erbil, a move officials say highlights the Region’s strong partnership with Washington.
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