HALABJA, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish lawmakers gathered in Halabja Thursday for the final step to turn the city and district into Kurdistan Region’s fourth province.
“This is a historic day not just for the people of Halabja but also for Kurdistan as a country,” Youssef Muhammad, speaker of the Kurdish parliament, said in an extraordinary session of the house symbolically held in the city.
“For the first time legitimate Kurdish institutions make a decision that turns a district into a province,” Muhammad added.
Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani signed a regional directive to change Halabja, 110 kilometers south of Sulaimani, from district status to a governate last year. The draft has to be approved by the parliament before taking effect.
“The decision today will heal some of the wounds that Halabja has been carrying as they will run their province by themselves and for themselves,” Youssef said.
Halabja become an international icon for Saddam Hussein’s murderous campaign against Iraq’s Kurds when his forces attacked the city with chemical bombs in March 1988, killing an estimated 5,000, many of them women and children.
Halabja, with a total population of 337,000, has been a district of Sulaimani, where it has had two representatives on the provincial council.
The Kurdish towns of Penjwen, Sarazour and Saidsadiq will be part of the new province.
”The people of Halabja are entitled to have their own recognized province,” Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani told Rudaw Thursday, hoping the decision would “ease some their sufferings.”
“The people of Halabja have experienced much agony,” Barzani said. “They are the symbol of our people’s resistance.”
Halabja will be the Kurdistan Region’s fourth province, alongside Erbil, Sulaimani and Dohuk.
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