Baghdad - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday vowed to enforce "a just punishment" for those convicted of the 1988 massacre of more than 5,000 Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja.

"We must not keep silent about the killing of the innocents in Halabja," al-Maliki said in a speech from the town. "We must restore the rights taken from them by the murderers and criminals."

"Shame on us if we keep silent or give up. We will not be silent until a just punishment is imposed on everyone who committed a crime," the prime minister said.

The Iraqi High Tribunal in February 2008 condemned Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, to death on genocide charges for his role in the 1988 Anfal campaign against Iraq's Kurds.

An estimated 100,000 Kurds were killed in that campaign. Five thousand were killed by poison gas in Halabja alone.

The death sentence against al-Majid, who is former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's cousin, has not yet been implemented because it requires a presidential decree.

Al-Majid, who was listed as the fifth most-wanted man in Iraq after the US invasion, was captured in August 2003.

The former defence minister and intelligence chief faces a second death sentence for "crimes against humanity" committed in the course of crushing a 1991 uprising of Iraqi Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq and a third death sentence for squashing an uprising in Baghdad.

Al-Maliki's visit to Halabja came on the second day of his visit to northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

On Sunday, al-Maliki met with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani and pledged to resolve disputes over land and oil.

Al-Maliki has described those disputes as "the most serious" conflict Iraq now faces, and Barzani has warned that a failure to resolve those disputes could result in civil war.

"The challenges that face the political process require more meetings and cooperation between all Iraqis. I am very optimistic about this meeting," al-Maliki told reporters after meeting Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself an ethnic Kurd.

"We will receive a Kurdish delegation in Baghdad, and I hope that the region's prime minister (Nechirvan Barzani) will come to discuss all issues and find the proper solutions to them," al-Maliki added.

The Kurdish regional government in Arbil and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad both claim land and hydrocarbon resources bordering the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The Kurdish parliament in June passed a draft constitution that defined the borders of Kurdistan as including land that now falls in the provinces of Diyala, Nineveh, and al-Ta'mim, the site of the city of Kirkuk and nearby oil fields worth millions.

But in a special session on July 9, it indefinitely postponed a referendum to approve the draft following pressure from Baghdad and Washington. (dpa)