KRG ready to establish Feyli affairs center, says PM Barzani

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Thursday expressed his government’s readiness to establish a center dedicated to Feyli affairs following a suggestion by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) President Masoud Barzani on Sunday.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Barzani thanked the organizers of the first International Scientific Conference of the Genocide of Kurdish Nation (Feyli Genocide) in Erbil, which was held with the participation of hundreds of researchers, academics, journalists, and politicians across the country, initiated by KDP leader Barzani.

The party’s leader in a speech on Tuesday proposed founding a center dedicated to Feylis, tens of thousands of whom had been forcibly displaced and killed by the former regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  

“I express the KRG’s readiness to undertake His Excellency President Barzani’s order to establish a center for the Feyli Kurds affairs,” the premier tweeted on Thursday.

Ethnically Kurdish, the Feylis, numbered around a million in Iraq, are adherents of Shiite Islam, whose sect and ethnicity have made them vulnerable to the Ba’athist atrocities.

The three-day conference included numerous sessions of research experts, discussing the history of Feylis and the genocide and discrimination they faced at the hands of former regimes.

The former Ba’athist regime in the early 1980s launched a systematic ethnic cleansing campaign, by revoking their citizenship and later deporting the Feylis to Iran, accusing them of disloyalty to Iraq.

Between 10,000 to 20,000 young Feylis are estimated to have been killed by the former regime. Many Feylis, who are predominantly merchants and businesses, were also stripped of their properties and assets.

Only a small number of Feylis were able to acquire Iranian citizenship after they were expelled from Iraq. Thousands of others spent years in displaced camps in Iran in dire economic conditions until the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.

Kurdistan 24 Media Company for Research and Ltd. was the media sponsor of the conference.