The town Koy Sanjaq (Arabic: كيويسنجق, Kurdish: Koye, Turkish: Köy Sancak- also known as Koya, Kuya, Koysinjak, Koy Sanjaq, Kou Senaq, Kou Senjaq) is located in the Erbil Governorate of Iraqi Kurdistan, close to the Iranian border.
Wallace Lyon, travelling through the town in 1923, compared it to Sulaimani and noted that it was a centre for tobacco. The governor at the time was Jamil Agha Howaizi, succeeding the late Hama Agha Ghafuri. [1]
In the 1990s the town was the scene of much fighting between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). In 1996, the Independent reported that it had been taken by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and noted that it had changed hands three times in a month. [2]
The population is between 50,000 and 100,000. [3]
A specific variant of the Aramaic language, Koy Sanjaq Surat, spoken by about 1,000 people in the town, as well as the nearby village of Armota, takes its name from the town. [4]
One of the local dishes is Dolma. [5]
Famous people from the city include the Kurdish poet Haji Qadir Koyi, Sheikh Jangi Talabani [older brother of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani] Hama Aghai Gewre Ghafuri, Kaka Ziad Ghafuri, Jalal Talabani, Omar Debaba, Mamosta Aziz, Malay Gewre, Haji Bakir Aghai Hawezi, Dildar, Dr Xalid Ghafuri, Amin Agha, Mela Masoum, Dr Fuad Masoum, Sewa Koyi. The current President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, who was born in the nearby village of Kelkan, went to school here. In 1949 he joined the town's branch of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). [6]
A university, known in English as "Koya University" was set up in the town in 2003.