KRG announces Halabja as its fourth province

Barzani said at a news conference in Erbil , attended by " Shafaq News " , that the decision to transfer Halabja to a province was taken based on the articles 115 and 141 of the Iraqi Constitution , noting that his government had approached Baghdad since a while to take the necessary measures for the conversion , but it did not send the answer so far .

He added that KRG was based on a ruling issued by the highest authority in the region which it the presidency of the region as President Massoud Barzani as well as KRG have ordered to implement this decision and sign it today.

He said that the decision will be sent today to the presidency of the region for approval by the region's president , Massoud Barzani tomorrow .

The Federal Cabinet had approved at its session in 31 of last December last, a bill to eliminate conversion of Halabja in Kurdistan Region to a province.

The Federal Cabinet has received this decision from a delegation of Kurdistan Region that visited Baghdad as it asked to transfer Halabjato a province.

Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki has confirmed earlier last year that his government supports the demand of Kurdistan Region to raise the administrative level of Halabja district to a province and it is values the pain that is still experienced by the city because of what has happened in the chemical bombing in the time of the former regime and that it is obligated to compensate the city and compensate the wounded and the families of the victims financially and morally.

It is known that Halabja district is affiliated to Sulaymaniyah province and if it has became a province then Iraq will have 19 provinces instead of 18 , and will include the four provinces of Kurdistan Region in addition to proposed province there are also all of Sulaymaniyah , Erbil and Dohuk .

Halabja is one of the cities of Sulaymaniyah , 8-10 miles awayfrom the Iranian border.

The former regime had bombed at 16 of March 1988 Halabja city with chemical weapons , killing more than 5,500 Iraqi Kurds as 7000-10000 mostly civilians had been injured, thousands of residents of the town had been killed in the following year due to health complications , diseases and birth defects .