Baghdad - Kurdistan's Regional Premier Nechirvan Barzani on Thursday launched the autonomous region's first news agency, Kurdistan News Agency (Akanews) in Arbil.

"Establishing this agency aims at reporting local news from Kurdistan to the world and reporting world events to the region," Barzani said in a statement, adding that being neutral was one of the agency's priorities.

Barzani said the agency was founded to support different media in the region, as well as to tell the outside world about developments in the region "after long years of the absence of an independent and professional news agency".

Akanews is to broadcast news in five languages: Kurdish, with both northern and southern dialects; Arabic, Turkish, Persian and English.

Iraq's Kurdistan region is home to most of the country's Kurdish minority.(dpa)