Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan is now once again increasingly known because Saddam Hussein committed his worst crime against humanity there. His forces rained down mustard gas and nerve agents on the town, murdered 5,000 people in minutes and permanently maimed many thousands more in March 1988.

But Halabja could come...

Over three hundred people from NHS bodies with their friends came together recently for a glittering charity ball in Newcastle Civic Centre.

They had gathered to support and raise funds for Kurdish born orthopaedic surgeon, Professor Deiary Kader who founded the Newcastle-Gateshead Medical Volunteers to bring much needed medical relief...

Westminster MPs from the all-party parliamentary group together with British activists from the three main political parties and writers recently joined many others from across the world to attend the international conference on the Genocide in Erbil and a civic ceremony in Halabja.

These 25th anniversary events also garnered...

The great achievement of post-Saddam Iraq is its transition from a centralised and mainly Sunni dominated one-party rule to federalism and power-sharing between Sunnis, Kurds and Shia, and small minorities. All this is, or should be, governed by the constitution, approved by over 80% of the people in a referendum...

The acerbic arguments about Iraq return this month with the 10th anniversary of the intervention. This milestone coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Kurdish genocide which itself began 50 years ago. It is a year of anniversaries.

Lest we forget: 16 March 1988. Halabja, a small town, where 5,000...

The Commons has formally agreed to recognise the genocide against the Kurds 25 years after the poison-gas attack on Halabja and following a concerted campaign by Kurds and their British supporters, led by Iraqi born Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, to break the silence on this untold story.

The word historic...

Many people ask me whether the Kurdistan Region in Iraq will become independent. This could be done either by seceding if and when the moment is right, and thanks ironically to its warmer ties with Turkey, or by being pushed out of Iraq in order to enhance Shia domination of...

Concerted efforts over the last year by Kurdish and British campaigners have scored a major result. The British Parliament will discuss the genocide against the Iraqi Kurds in a special and historic debate from about 2.15-5pm on Thursday 28 February.

The title of the debate is "the 25th anniversary of...

The current campaign to win formal recognition of the Kurdish genocide is nearing its finale in Britain. Last week, leading supporters of the all-party group on Kurdistan urged a business committee, which allocates time, to endorse an historic parliamentary debate on the Kurdish genocide and its contemporary relevance.

Nadhim Zahawi,...

"Was It Worth It? Iraq, Ten Years On" is the subject of a major debate, organised this week by The Huffington Post. It is the first of many such debates marking the tenth anniversary of the liberation/invasion/intervention/occupation of Iraq - take your pick.

The debate on this vexed question remains...

The untold story of the Kurdish genocide was the subject last week of a major international conference organised, just a stone's throw from Parliament, by the Kurdistan Regional Government in the UK.

It attracted nearly 300 campaigners, academics, experts, Kurds and Brits to hear 40 speakers, including former French Foreign...

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. This often astonishes people because it remains very vivid and even vicious in British politics. The usual historical perspective about past events hasn't yet overcome often hysterical arguments about this intervention. Expect a vitriolic avalanche of polemic because Iraq...

Next year's 10th anniversary of the Iraq war may focus on the feebleness so far of federalism and the country possibly breaking up without the urgent resolution of the tensions between the autonomous Kurdistan Region and Baghdad that have recently put tanks and artillery on their internal borders.

Ancient differences...

The ability to love your country but face the facts and be truthful about its shortcomings is what distinguishes patriotism from chauvinism, which essentially says 'my country right or wrong.' Many people are critical of America or Britain but not as forthrightly as some Americans or Brits.

I recently...

The main party leaders strengthened their positions at the recent wave of party conferences but their fate at the general election hinges on the prospects of economic renewal and possibly tumultuous events in the Middle East or elsewhere. The slaughter in Syria could endure and spread. An attack on Iran...

One Saturday 23 years ago many people watched in horror as 96 Liverpool fans were crushed and suffocated at Hillsborough. Police officers made serious crowd control mistakes and colluded with an MP and a major newspaper to switch the blame to the fans. They concocted black propaganda that portrayed the...

Four years ago I joined a Labour Friends of Iraq (LFIQ) delegation to Baghdad. We took a military flight from Kuwait and a Puma helicopter from Baghdad airport to the Green Zone. The chopper flew low and fast over Baghdad to prevent rockets arming themselves before hitting us. An armoured...

The Kurds are becoming a major new factor in the Middle East and could overcome old injustices and fashion new alliances for the better.

A generation ago the plight of the Kurds was dire in all four countries where they mainly live - Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria following the...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu's views of Tony Blair and the Iraq war are not new. Very little is in the debate between those who supported intervention in Iraq and those who opposed it.

There was also very little in the Archbishop's case that justified it making headlines. But I suspect...

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." Stalin apparently said this to Churchill on the news of the death of a close friend of the British Premier.

The cynical saw speaks to a wider truth concerning human tragedies. We find it difficult to understand...