Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Erbil (Agenzia Fides) - The President of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, has approved the new legislation which also includes Armenian and Syriac among the five official languages used in the territory under his government. As reported by the website of the governorate of Erbil, the first article of the law indicates that the main official languages of the region are Kurdish and Arabic, while the second article also authorizes to use Armenian, Turkmen and Syriac as the official languages in administrative districts in which these languages are used by the majority of the population. The Parliament of Iraqi Kurdistan had already ratified the law last October.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, political initiatives in support of the Syrian language had already been inaugurated in the nineties. In recent times, even the Iraqi National Parliament had recognized Syriac, Armenian and Turkmen as the official languages of the Country. The national law on official languages had been passed by the House of Representatives last January 7, and represented the culmination of ten years of efforts and mobilization aimed at obtaining such legislative recognition as an application of the constitutional principle that guarantees equality rights exercised by all Iraqi citizens. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 16/12/2014)
