The Assyrian groups such as the BNDP (Hakkari), APP (Nimrod Baito), CDUP (Abd al-Ahad Afram), etc. led by Sargis Aghajan who serve the Kurdish interest want the Nineveh plain to became part of the Kurdistan region and are issuing public statements to this affect. Given Kurd's unwillingness to acknowledge the ethnic Assyrian identity, and their unwillingness to honor their political and the democratic rights one has to wonder how Kurd's domination of the Plain of Nineveh will benefit the future of the Assyrians of Iraq. Kurds themselves have not made any written promises and are happy to have their paid agents who work for the KDP to pave the way for their takeover of the plain of Nineveh without having to make any guarantees of more freedom and better future for its inhabitants. The following statement by Mr. Michael Youash of Iraq's Sustainable Democracy argues these points.

The Assyrian rights and the

Kurdistan Region Option

February 22, 07

Michael Youash

Many speak of federalism options available through the Kurdistan Regional Government. This is because the Minister of Finance (former Deputy Prime Minister, before the KDP-PUK merger), the Hon. Mr. Sarkis Aghajan is issuing public statements on demanding autonomy for Assyrians, as part of the Kurdistan Region.[4] Other active political organizations of various sizes operating in northern Iraq are now echoing similar goals.

People supporting this position argue that Assyrians need friends in a violent Iraq; the Shi’a Arabs and Sunni Arabs provide no hope, and so we must turn to the Sunni Kurds. Some groups are managing to secure modest amounts of funding from the KRG, which is welcome, but not at levels where sustainable communities are being developed.

The question is, although the KRG is most certainly deserving of our gratitude for the little funding it does provide, and the public statements on autonomy are appreciated, is it enough to provide an assurance of a future in the Kurdistan Region? Does it at least guarantee a federal unit where, even if we cannot expect democracy, we can expect a degree of the “autonomy” expected?

I will not address here the arguments based around local and regional power (for example, what acceleration of targeting there would be by Sunni Arabs for formally joining the Kurds in ‘breaking-up’ Iraq, or the impact in Syria and Turkey). Instead I will focus on some clear and hard facts to bear in mind regarding this option. This is not a matter of totally rejecting the KRG option. Instead, it is to advise a highly cautious approach, where we secure some basic guarantees. These are listed below.

Last week, our people were informed that the Hon. Fawzi Hariri (KDP Minister of Industry in Baghdad), came to Washington, DC. During his official visit, he met with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. He tried to end any support for developing an ‘administrative area’ on the grounds that Assyrians did not number enough for any type of federal unit and raised questions about their ability to govern such an entity.

This act inherently contradicts the statements of the Hon. Sarkis Aghajan. This should cause grave doubt and concern. Such a serious contradiction between two senior ministers of the KRG/KDP must be explained.

The KRG must provide the following:

KRG Guarantee 1: Based on this high-level contradiction, the KRG must formally declare its policy on Assyrians and autonomy/federalism.

Over-lapping with this issue, but still deserving of treatment, is the matter of the Draft Constitution for the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Given the statements and demands of KDP Minister Aghajan, and even a quote attributed to the KRG’s Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani, supporting Assyrian autonomy, the Kurdistan Region Constitution has a major weakness.

In its present form, the KRG Constitution does not even have an equivalent to the Iraqi Constitution’s Art. 125 that gives us administrative rights. The KRG, with senior representatives making promises of autonomy, denies the same type of constitutional right coming out of Baghdad, let alone one that allows for autonomy.

The KRG must provide the following:

KRG Guarantee 2: Provide proposed language by KRG officials that will be adopted allowing for Assyrian autonomy in the KRG Constitution.

Lastly, the KDP arm of the KRG directly intervened in the Nineveh Plain to prevent Assyrians and other minorities from voting in the January 2005 elections. Journalist Gareth Porter uncovered this story using military intelligence sources. His investigation led to further reports of denying our people the vote during the October referendum. There are similar reports of gross voting irregularities arising from KDP intervention in the December 2005 elections. Greater attention by US authorities in the December elections ensured more people could vote, however.

Assyrians must ask themselves a vital question regarding this fact. If the KDP cannot trust us to vote and pick our leaders; if they cannot trust us to decide whether a draft constitution is good for us or not, can we expect them to trust us to run an autonomous region/province within the Kurdistan Region? I will not make this decision for readers, but I ask that when answering it, one be honest with themselves, at least.

The KRG must provide the following:

KRG Guarantee 3: Accepting tangible inputs on policy from all the parties/lists that secured a meaningful level of ‘ethnically-conscious’ electoral support.

If these three basic guarantees cannot be met, it is difficult to see how Assyrians should leave all other federalism options to jump into a Kurdistan Region.

There are other issues, related to human rights, intimidation, assassinations, strong-arming, arbitrary arrests, illegal land seizures, de-development of targeted areas, among others – all verified by external human rights bodies. However, the issues above alone cast enough doubt without having to go into even more problems with KRG authorities.