ASIA/IRAQ - Groups of the Assyrian diaspora in the U.S.: the Kurdistan Regional Government recognizes the genocide of our people

Friday, 9 August 2013

Erbil (Agenzia Fides) - Some organizations operating in the Iraqi Diaspora in the U.S. have sent a letter to Masoud Barzani, President of the Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan, to ask for such a political entity to recognize the genocide suffered by the Assyrians and Armenians at the hands of the Kurds allied with the Ottoman Turks during and after the First World War. The initiative, inspired in particular by the American Mesopotamian Organization and by the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, was made known in coincidence with the Assyrian Martyrs' Memorial Day, celebrated every year on August 7 among the Assyrian communities scattered throughout the world.
In December 2007 – the Assyrian agency Aina reported - Assyrian and Greek genocides were officially recognized by scholars next to the Armenian, recognized as early as 1997. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) officially certified that "the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted genocide against Armenians, Greeks Assyrians of Ponto and Anatolia". The two symbols of the Assyrian diaspora - which also operate to influence U.S. policy on issues of interest to their community - in their initiative point out that the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in turn asked the Western governments recognition of the "Kurdish Genocide" perpetrated by the regime of Saddam Hussein. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 09/08/2013).


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