Patriarch Calls for Assyrian Administrative Unit in North Iraq

Brussels (AINA) -- On September 16 the head of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, Patriarch Dinkha IV, proclaimed after a prayer service in a Syriac Orthodox church that Assyrians must work to establish an Assyrian administered unit in northern Iraq's Nineveh Plain. Patriarch Dinkha emphasized the Assyrian administrative area must comply with the Iraqi constitution and United Nations regulations.

The Patriarch reiterated Assyrians are under attack in the Middle East and it is thus necessary for the Assyrians of different church denominations to unite. Bishop Hazail Soumi, the Assyrian bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Belgium and France, was also present, giving a speech in which he said: "We are one nation but history divided us, it is time we work for unity".

In a show of solidarity the prayer service was conducted by clergy from the Apostolic Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church.

The calls for Assyrian rights in Iraq and Assyrian unity by H.H. Dinkha are adding momentum to requests made public by several other church leaders from different Assyrian church denominations.

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Assyrian Bishops Call for Assyrian Autonomy in Iraq

Bishop Gallo Shabo






Stockholm (AINA) --- Ablahad Gallo Shabo is the latest bishop from the Syriac Orthodox Church to call for local self governance for the Assyrians in northern Iraq's Nineveh plain. The prelate expressed his call for local self governance during an interview with Ishtar TV, which broadcasts from northern Iraq.

Ablahad Gallo Shabo, who ministers a congregation of 30,000 Assyrians in Sweden, said the world community must help the Assyrians to achieve rights to govern themselves in the Nineveh plain, but at the same time that this must not be understood as a wish to break up Iraq.

Earlier this year, the bishop of Belgium and France, Hazail Soumi asked European politicians during a conference in the European parliament in Brussels why Assyrians are not allowed to gain autonomy in Iraq as the Kurds have.

Joining the two Syriac Orthodox bishops in the call for local governance for Assyrians are two bishops of the Assyrian Catholic church, Bawai Soro and Sarhad Jammo, who published a joint statement this year calling for the Nineveh plaines to become governed by Assyrians.

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