ARBIL (Iraq), June 29: Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region has crowned the first-ever Miss Kurdistan, though the beauty contest took place without bikini-clad women and with journalists and their cameras kept at bay.

Twelve women competed in the beauty pageant held late on Thursday in Arbil, capital of the autonomous region in northern Iraq, organised by a Lebanese company and attended by foreign diplomats, singers, actors and officials. Shene Aziz Ako, an 18-year-old from Sulaimaniyah, was the winner.

“We organised the festival in a way that suits Kurdish traditions and habits; you will not see the bathing suites but you will see sports clothes and decent evening dress, which does not underplay the beauty of the girls,” Roy Shalala, an official from the organising company, told journalists.—AFP