ISTANBUL, Turkey – Kemal Aktas, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), submitted a draft bill to the Turkish parliament asking that the anniversary of the Halabja attack on Iraqi Kurds be recognized as a day to commemorate “Kurdish genocide” in Turkey.

The bill also urges Turkey for official recognition of Anfal, a genocidal military operation led by Saddam Hussein's Ba’athist regime, mainly against Iraq’s Kurds.

Thousands of civilians were killed during the Anfal campaigns. The attacks were part of a long-standing campaign that destroyed approximately 4,500 Kurdish and at least 31 Assyrian villages and displaced at least a million people.

A chemical weapons attack by the former Iraqi regime on March 16, 1988, on the Kurdish town of Halabja led to the deaths of an estimated 5,000 people, including many women and children. Since then, the city has become a powerful symbol of Kurdish suffering under Saddam.

Rudaw