Syria’s President Bashar Assad issues decree granting nationality to people in eastern al-Hassake region where tens of thousands of Kurds live

Syria's President Bashar Assad issued a decree on Thursday granting nationality to people in the eastern al-Hassake region where tens of thousands of Kurds live.

It was not immediately clear how many would be given nationality, but at least 150,000 Kurds are registered as foreigners as a result of a 1962 census in Hassake.

Syria’s state news agency reported that President Assad gave citizenship to the country's Kurds, who are a majority in the northeast and who have been denied nationality for nearly half a century. "President Assad issued a decree granting Arab Syrian citizenship to people registered as foreigners in the (governorate of Hassake)," it said.

The measure came a week after Assad tasked a committee with "resolving the problem of the 1962 census" in Hassake.

In 1962, 20 percent of Syria’s ethnic Kurdish population were deprived of citizenship after the controversial census, according to human rights groups.

The government at the time said its decision was based on a 1945 wave of illegal immigration of Kurds from neighboring states, including Turkey, to Hassake, where they "fraudulently" registered as Syrian citizens.

Assad on Wednesday met a delegation from Hassake and "listened to their demands," according to SANA. Also on Wednesday, the authorities released 48 Kurds detained in Raqqa on March 21 during Nowruz New Year celebrations.

On Thursday, "jurists finished drafting new legislation to replace emergency law and presented their text to the regional leadership of the Baath party," a politician close to the regime told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Assad on Thursday also fired the governor of the industrial city of Homs, north of Damascus, where protests last Friday turned violent, SANA reported. He was the second governor to be sacked in less than a month.