However, the Speaker of the house, Osama Nujaifi, advised that Kurdistan had the power to make Halabja a province.

[10] On 13 March 2014, Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister of Kurdistan, signed the decision of making Halabja district the fourth governorate of Kurdistan Region; that happened just three days before the remembrance of Halabja chemical attack, which happened on 16 March 1988.

[14] The Kurdish Parliament passed a bill in February 2015 to establish the legal framework for selecting a provincial council and a governor.

[10] As of December 2015, the Iraqi Parliament had not yet officially recognised the province, apparently because of issues with budgeting finance for it.

[15] In August 2018, the then Iraqi Interior Minister, Qasim al-Araji, approved authorization for the opening of federal offices that would issue passports, national ID cards, and other civil documents under its own name.