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Shafaq News/ The deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Muhsen al-Mandalawi, on Saturday assured that the government program of Mohammad Shia al-Sudani's cabinet has mustered the backing of all the legislative assembly's members.
Al-Mandalawi's remarks came during a meeting with Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), earlier today.
An official readout issued by the Barzani Headquarters said that al-Mandalawi thanked Barzani for sponsoring the international conference on the Fayli Kurds Genocide and shedding light on the injustices they endured under the former regime.
Earlier today, Barzani proposed opening a research center on Fayli Kurds in the Kurdistan region's capital city, Erbil.
Barzani's proposal came during a speech he delivered at the International Scientific Conference on the Genocide of the Kurdistan Nations (the genocide of Fayli Kurds) in Erbil, with the participation of numerous Kurdish and Iraqi politicians, researchers, journalists, and foreign diplomats.
Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and President Nechirvan Barzani also attended the three-day conference, which will host a range of panel discussions, presentation of research papers as well as policy recommendations on the Feylis.
The KDP leader proposed establishing a center tasked with following up on the affairs of the Feyli Kurds.
"The Fayli Kurds are an inseparable part of the Kurdish nation and have courageously resisted all attempts aimed at ethnic cleansing. Despite repeated attempts, they have been able to protect their identities and culture," Barzani said.
The Faylis are ethnic Kurds and followers of the Shiite sect of Islam. The former Baathist regime in the early 1980s launched a systematic ethnic cleansing campaign, by firstly revoking their citizenship and later deporting the Faylis to Iran, accusing them of disloyalty to Iraq.
Barzani highlighted the "remarkable role" the members of this community played in the Kurdish revolutionary movement led by the late General Mustafa Barzani in the last century.
Several important KDP organizations were run by notable Fayli Kurds, including the party's women and youth union, as well as the KDP secretary.
The Kurdish leader recalled how the former dictatorial regime experimented with chemical weapons on nearly 300 Fayli Kurds in the Akashat area of al-Anbar province in 1981. The regime had similarly tested chemical weapons on 150 Barzani youths, Barzani added.
Barzani called on the Iraqi government to compensate the Fayli community for the moral and material damages sustained at the hands of the former regime.
Only a small number of Feylis were able to acquire Iranian citizenship after they were expelled from Iraq. Thousands of others spent years in displacement camps in Iran in dire economic conditions until the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.