HALABJA, Kurdistan Region—Halabja residents rallied in the city centre last week, calling on the authorities not to send the Peshmerga outside the Kurdish borders and to keep former disputed territories under control.
“We demand not to force the Peshmerga to fight beyond the Kurdistani territories for some people who never sided with Kurds in times of peace or despair,” said a statement by the organizers of the rally.
The statement said that the Kurdish government should not withdraw from Kurdish areas it has liberated from the Islamic State (ISIS) in the last three months.
“We as the people of the capital of peace ask the Kurdish authorities not to hand over the Kurdistani territories outside the Kurdistan Region which are liberated or to be liberated with the pure blood of Peshmerga forces to any other army,” read the statement.
The Kurdish parliament in Erbil named Halabja—the site of Saddam Hussein’s gas attack in 1988 that killed 5,000 people— the capital of peace in September 2014.
Pictures of more than 30 Peshmerga soldiers from Halabja killed in the fight against ISIS were held at the rally by relatives and families.
As the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of ISIS last summer, Kurdish Peshmerga forces moved to territories previously marked as disputed by the Iraqi government in Kirkuk, Diyala and Nineveh.
Arsalan Abid, one of the organizers of the rally said that Erbil should protect newly-liberated Kurdish areas and not get involved in Iraq’s sectarian war.
“The rise of ISIS and the involuntary Kurdish fight in this war is the outcome of the marginalizing and sectarian policies of the Iraqi government,” he said. “The Kurds are totally out of this sectarian war.”
A Kurdish Imam was shot dead late December in the town of Tuz Khurmatu south of Kirkuk, causing outrage among the local population.
Protesters accused armed Shiite militiamen of the killing.
In Jalawla and Saadiya Kurdish forces and Shiite militia are in a tense relationship since the liberation of both towns from ISIS in November.
Abid believes that asserting the Peshmerga control in these areas is the only way to keep away the danger of militiamen and other groups.
Organizers of the rally said that the Peshmerga are leading the fight against ISIS while facing major hurdles created by the central government.
“The Iraqi government not only did not abide by its humanitarian and moral responsibilities [towards Kurdistan], but quite the opposite, they blocked all humanitarian and military aid offered from around the world to Kurdistan Region,” said the rally statement.
The mayor of Halabja Arkan Hasan said that the people of Halabja have contributed enormously to the defense of Kurdistan by sending thousands of Peshmerga fighters to the fronts.
He said that by August 4,000 Peshmerga, police and security officers from Halabja were fighting against ISIS on different frontlines.
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