JINHA

NEWS CENTER – People in Turkey called for March 16 to be declared a day of remembrance for genocide yesterdayon the 27^th anniversary of the Halabja massacre.

Yesterday in Turkey's Parliament, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) called for March 16 to be declared a day of commemoration of Kurdish genocide.

"The Ba'ath regime carried out the Anfal Operation systematically, with the goal of displacing, assimilating and exterminating the Kurdish people," said the HDP's Van representative, Kemal Aktaş, speaking in Parliament in favor of the change. He said the Anfal Operation generally (in which 180,000 Kurds were killed) and the Halabja massacre specifically met the criteria of the Rome Statute on genocide.

The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as genocide in March 2010, followed by Norway, Sweden and the UK. It would be an important step, said Kemal, to recognize it as genocide in the country in the Middle East that is home to the largest population of Kurds.

The Human Rights Association (İHD) in Diyarbakır also supported the call for the Turkish state to recognize the day as genocide.

Daesh gangs, like Saddam Hussein, were attempting genocide now against those in Iraq who did not belong to their own ethnic and religious groups, said RaciBilici, the Diyarbakır branch chair of the association.

(ny/zd/cm)