Following was the question tabled by Lord Hylton at the House of Lords:   "Lord Hylton to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to protect the legitimate interests of the ChaldoAssyrians and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq"   The following is a brief background, which will serve to give you a better perspective as to why such a debate was organised.  

On 8th December 2004, the UK Branch of the Assyrian Democratic Movement in conjunction with the Jubilee Campaign and Mr. Stephen Pound MP, held a Parliamentary Debate at the House of Commons regarding the plight of the indigenous ChaldoAssyrian community in Iraq.  During the debate, Messrs. Stephen Pound MP, Robert Spink MP, John Barrett MP, Russell Brown MP & Gary Streeter MP directed numerous pertinent questions to Her Majesty's Government. The main issues raised were:  

1) "That the British Government support the creation of an Autonomous Administrative Region for the ChaldoAssyrians in the Plains of Nineveh."

2) The issue of ChaldoAssyrian land that has been illegally encroached upon and/or misappropriated. That all such land be returned to their rightful owners.

3) That the British Government financially support the reconstruction and redevelopment of all ChaldoAssyrian Towns and Villages which were razed to the ground by the Baath regime. Also, to financially support the return of ChaldoAssyrian refugees who have fled Iraq due to mental and physical harassment and to financially support ChaldoAssyrians in Iraq so that they may enhance their security and protection.

4) "To seek further assurances from the British Government that from their contacts with their American allies and the Iraqi Government for specific protection for the persecuted ChaldoAssyrian community."

5) The issue of assassinations of various high-ranking members of the Assyrian Democratic Movement was raised and the British Government was asked to pay closer attention to such crimes perpetrated against our people by well-known assailants, as all such crimes against ADM members as well as other innocent ChaldoAssyrians have hitherto gone unpunished.   The following are extracts of the response from the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Chris Mullin) to the Members of Parliament:  

Chris Mullin: - "We have recently consulted fairly widely with a range of leading Christians in Northern Iraq, however, and we can find no significant support for autonomy; indeed, we found significant opposition to it. One of the Christian leaders in Northern Iraq to whom we spoke said the idea seemed to have come from members of the Chaldo-Assyrian community in exile rather than those who live in Iraq.

Reference was made to article 53(D) of the transitional law, which guarantees the administrative, cultural and political rights of the Turkomans, the Chaldo-Assyrians and all other citizens, but contrary to what my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North suggested, it does not include a reference to a self-governing region. Ultimately it is for the Iraqi authorities to determine the proper interpretation of the transitional administrative law; however, in our view, article 53(D) does not imply the right to an autonomous administrative region for one particular group. As I said at the outset, as far as I am aware, Christian leaders in Northern Iraq - and we talk to them - have rejected the idea of an autonomous region, saying that such a proposal would make their community more, not less, vulnerable to attack, and I know that is not my hon. Friend's intention.

One leading member of the community recently described the proposal as "very wrong and dangerous".   Stephen Pound MP asks:- "The point the Minister touches on - the assertion that the community in exile may be making a statement not in keeping with the one made by the community in Northern Iraq - is of the greatest and gravest significance. Will the Minister give us some suggestion as to who exactly made that statement in Northern Iraq?

What statement from what group would convince him that the feeling is more widespread that a safe zone is the only way to preserve not just the culture and community but the very lives of the people whom we are discussing?"

  Minister Chris Mullin responds "If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I cannot say who made such a statement, because they did so in off-the-record conversations. I have not been back to check the sources, but I know the identity of the people concerned, and they are extremely prominent. They would probably be well known to many in the exiled Chaldo-Assyrian community in this country. There may well be some people in the Christian community in Iraq who would like such an autonomous region; all I can say is that we have not been able to detect them so far, if any group does hold such an opinion it is, in our view - and it is only our view - a rather small one. Christian Iraqis are well integrated in the autonomous area of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan regional government in Kirkuk and most parts of Mosul, but not the western side of the city, where the situation is difficult and dangerous.

In Irbil, some Christians occupy senior Government positions. One is Deputy Prime Minister, another is Minister of Finance. They have a representative in the interim Iraqi Government in Baghdad, who is Minister of Displacement and Migration. A committee has been set up in Ankawa, a Christian village just outside Irbil, to help resettlement of Christians from elsewhere in Iraq. So far, about 1,000 Christian families have resettled in the areas around Irbil and Dohuk provinces. Another 50 Christian families, mainly from the south of Iraq, have resettled in the Sulaymaniyah province. A further 1,000 Christians took temporary shelter in Sulaymaniyah from Mosul during fighting there in early November, but we understand that most, if not all, of them have returned to their homes in Mosul.

Progress continues to be made, and I am pleased to report that on 6 and 7 December, the first 70 of 170 Assyrian families that had fled to Baghdad in the 1980s returned to their homes in the Faysh Khabur area along the Syrian border. Some 120 Kurdish families who lived there have left, and we expect the remainder of the Assyrians who fled in the 1980s to return, if they wish to, shortly. Our officials in Iraq regularly meet members of the Christian communities and raise their concerns with the Iraqi authorities. The Iraqi Human Rights Minister, Bakhtiar Amin, who recently met my noble Friend Baroness Symons, is particularly concerned about the issue and we have asked our missions in Iraq to continue to monitor the situation closely." 

In order to counter the argument put forward by the Foreign Office that "Christian leaders in Northern Iraq have rejected the idea of an autonomous region", Mr Yonadam Kanna, Secretary General of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa) and the only Assyrian in the Iraqi National Assembly democratically elected by our people, wrote to PM Tony Blair on 20th May 2005, confirming the following:  

1) That the Assyrian Democratic Movement does actively seek an Autonomous Administrative Region for the ChaldoAssyrians in the Nineveh Plains.

2) That the ADM actively pursues the return of ALL ChaldoAssyrian land and villages that have suffered from encroachment and illegal misappropriation.

3) That the ADM is actively pursuing the reconstruction of ChaldoAssyrian towns and villages destroyed by the previous Baath regime.   We also sent a copy of Mr. Kanna's letter with an ADM UK covering letter to Dr. Kim Howells, Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, so that the Foreign Office is fully aware of the position of the ADM, specifically relating to our legitimate claim for an Autonomous Administrative Region. As you may be aware Dr. Kim Howells recently responded to a question tabled by Mr. Edward Leigh MP regarding the establishment of an autonomous administrative region for the ChaldoAssyrians in the usual unsupportive and negative Foreign Office manner.  

Attached to both Mr. Yonadam Kanna's letter to PM Tony Blair and the ADM UK letter to Dr. Kim Howells was a copy of the Baghdad conference declaration issued in October 2003, we draw your attention to the relevant clause, as follows:   "The conference stressed the need to designate an administrative region for our people in the Nineveh Plain with the participation of other ethnic and religious groups, where a special law will be established for self-administration and the assurance of administrative, political, cultural rights in towns and villages throughout Iraq where our people reside."