Iraq's Maliki promises Kurdish gas victims justice

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki speaks to the press after meeting with members of the UN Security Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York, July 22, 2009.

HALABJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki promised Kurds Monday he would not rest until members of Saddam Hussein's government and military who ordered poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages were punished.

Maliki, who met the largely-autonomous Kurdish region's president Masoud Barzani Sunday, is on a fence-mending mission to defuse a bitter dispute over land and oil, and improve relations between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Thousands of Kurds were killed in the gas attacks, including about 5,000 in an attack on the town of Halabja in 1988.

"We will not give up, will not stop, will not be silenced, until a just verdict and punishment is found," Maliki said after visiting a Halabja cemetery where he spoke to gas attack victims and their relatives, while his guards distributed cash.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a cousin of Saddam's known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of poison gas, is on trial for the Halabja gas attacks, along with three men including former defense minister, Sultan Hashem, and former army chief of staff, Hussein Rashid Muhammed.

Majeed, Hashem and Muhammed have already received death sentences for their role in the Anfal military campaign in which Saddam killed tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. But political wrangling has so far prevented the death sentences from being carried out.

Iraq's Presidency Council, consisting of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his two deputies, a Sunni and a Shi'ite, has not ratified the Anfal sentences because of a row over whether Hashem and Muhammed were guilty.

Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi says they were just carrying out orders and should be treated as soldiers.

U.S. troops have intervened in standoffs between Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers and Iraqi forces over disputed territory and U.S. officials see the tensions between the Arab-led Baghdad government and the KRG as the greatest threat to Iraq's security.

The United States has urged the two to work toward peace.

Maliki's Arab-led government has called oil deals the KRG has made independently with foreign firms illegal and disputes KRG claims to territories along its border.

Barzani has accused Maliki of acting like a tyrant and sidelining the Kurd minority. Sunday the two leaders agreed to hold further talks.