ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Saturday attended the opening ceremony of a nationwide Toyota inspection center in Duhok, as well as a brand new multi-million dollar road project connecting the Sheikhan district to Lalish.

The town of Lalish is home to the holiest temple of the Yazidis, housing the tomb of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, a central figure in the Yazidi faith. Thousands of Yazidis visit the site every year to perform their religious pilgrimage.

"The Sheikhan-Lalish Road finished construction in record time with an investment of $20m," said the prime minister in an X post, expressing hope that the move "will ease movement of our Yazidi brothers and sisters, pilgrims, residents and visitors of the area."

"We will continue building a stronger, more prosperous Kurdistan," Barzani added.

Iraq's Yazidi population bore the brunt of the brutality of the Islamic State's (ISIS) expansion on Iraqi territory, which gained momentum in 2014, before they were completely territorially defeated in 2017. Thousands of Yazidi men were killed, women taken as slaves, and hundreds of thousands more were internally displaced across Iraq.

Both the Iraqi government and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have made it their mission to facilitate the Yazidi population's safe and easy return to their homelands in the Sinjar district south of Duhok.

In a separate ceremony, also on Saturday, the premier oversaw the opening of a pre-inspection center of Toyota in Duhok, in the presence of Japanese Ambassador to Iraq Akira Endo. The initiative will see Duhok become the inspection and distribution hub of all Toyota vehicles entering Iraq before being exported to other cities in the country.

"I am pleased to see a country like Japan place such trust in the Kurdistan Region by choosing one of its cities as the point of entry for all Japanese cars into Iraq, to then be distributed to the rest of Iraq," said Barzani in a speech during the opening ceremony.

"The KRG has always supported and will continue to support strategic projects of this kind," the premier further noted, expressing his pleasure that some of the employees working with the project are "locals from here, and gain skills and expertise, and some of the car parts are being assembled here," which leads to the creation of more job opportunities.

Japan and the Kurdistan Region share amicable bilateral relations, with Japan having opened a Consulate General in Erbil to represent Tokyo in the Kurdistan Region.

Dindar Zebari, the KRG's Coordinator for International Recommendations, hosted Hitoshi Ishizuka, the Consul General of Japan in the Kurdistan Region in June, with the pair discussing ways to "leverage Japan's expertise and strengthen its support for the region," according to a statement by the KRG.