Mideast: Chaldo-Assyrians in Iraq are In Danger, Stuck Between the Kurdish Government and Turkey

Thomas Imo

Recent attacks by Turkey in Chaldo-Assyrian villages have once again highlighted the precarious situation this minority group is facing in Iraq. 

Chaldo-Assyrians, a majority Christian ethnic group made up of individuals who identify as either Assyrian or Chaldean, have after recent episodes of persecution at the hands of ISIS seen their numbers decline in their homeland at a rapid pace. Once a majority in the area in which they are indigenous too, many because of land grabs, internal displacement, and prolonged and systematic maltreatment by the Kurdish regional government have sought to leave the region and find stability outside of Northern Iraq. More recent incidents whereby the Turkish state intending to kill PKK fighters hiding in Chaldo-Assyrian villages, has attacked innocent villagers, highlights a precarious relationship between Chaldo-Assyrians, Turkey, and their Kurdish neighbors in the Kurdish autonomous region. 

This relationship is not new. Indeed, members of the PKK, an organization advocating a unique blend of left-wing ideology and Kurdish nationalism, have been hiding without the consent of Chaldo-Assyrian villagers in Northern Iraqi villages for years. In 2015, the PKK occupied the Nahla village which holds three Chaldo-Assyrian villages, and in the latest iteration of attacks villagers in Nahla are coming to live in increasingly dangerous circumstances; as the Kurdish Regional Government has imposed a siege purportedly to drive out PKK fighters, making daily life hard for Chaldo-Assyrians who have to contend with this and other mistreatment by the Kurdistani government.

The PKK’s relationship with Chaldo-Assyrians remains a contentious issue in itself, as in the past many nationalists, within the Assyrian nationalist community in Syria particularly, have worked with the organization. This however should not be taken as any sort of justification for PKK intrusion in Chaldo-Assyrian villages in Iraq, as the community itself remains diverse in its political opinions and includes numerous political parties and organizations claiming to represent Chaldo-Assyrians (or Syriacs, Arameans, and Syriac-speaking peoples more broadly) but with vastly different agendas and goals. Indeed, just in Iraq alone several Chaldo-Assyrian parties exist and are split in regard to aligning with the KRG, the central government, or advocating for complete independence from the political will of larger political powers.  

Chaldo-Assyrian Mistreatment Within the KRG 

What’s more egregious is that the dangerous situation felt by Chaldo-Assyrians in these villages is further exasperated by discriminating policies enacted by the Kurdish Regional Government. The KRG has had a history of claiming to protect the region’s Chaldo-Assyrians but allegations of erasing and revising history, rigging elections, and stealing Chaldo-Assyrian agricultural land, has tainted any image that the government has of a progressive Kurdistani state. Moreover, when it comes to Turkish attacks, the KRG has usually stood on the side of Turkey, and has had a tense relationship with the PKK operatives working within the region. Yet, in reprimanding the PKK, the KRG has made no mention of the plight of Chaldo-Assyrians and has instead opted to frame the argument against the PKK working within Iraqi Kurdistan as a security and territorial integrity issue, rather than a human rights issue whereby Chaldo-Assyrians and other minority groups in the region face victimization.  

So long as the KRG remains silent on the precarious situation of it’s Chaldo-Assyrian population and remains complacent and indeed active in other forms of oppression, it cannot be said that is a democratic institution nor that it is deserving of any sort of international endorsement. Yet, there remains a sort of myth of the democratic and progressive environment of Iraqi Kurdistan that has garnered the support of numerous Western politicians misguided by the illusion that Kurdistan is some how more caring to minority groups than surrounding neighbors or that it is somehow a democratic safe haven in an otherwise tyrannical Middle East . 

The Silence of Iraq’s Central Government and the International Community 

In regard to the other main actor in Iraq responsible for the safety of its population —the central government —Baghdad has been completely silent on the plight of Chaldo-Assyrians in Iraqi Kurdistan. Beyond the persecution of Christians and the Chaldo-Assyrian community by ISIS, the Iraqi government has not assisted the Chaldo-Assyrian community nor has it aimed to do anything about KRG mistreatment. Rather, the Iraqi state have been complacent on the issue of Chaldo-Assyrian discrimination and persecution in Kurdistan and seems unwilling to engage with the KRG on issues that wont directly benefit the political and economic agenda of the central government. Members of the Chaldo-Assyrian community have effectively been forced to fight for themselves, forming local security forces and enlisting the help of diaspora organizations.  

As for the international community and the West, only lip-service has been payed to Chaldo-Assyrians, apart from the occasional allocation of funds to Iraqi Christian organizations. In regard to the KRG’s increasingly tyrannical treatment of the community even less has been said. Thus, it remains difficult for the Chaldo-Assyrian community living in their traditional homeland to eke out an existence within the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan and continue to survive within a dangerous environment between an aggressive neighboring country, Turkey, a dangerous non-state actor, the PKK, and a overbearing and adversary government, the KRG.  

For the Chaldo-Assyrians to continue to live safely within Northern Iraq more has to be done. It remains the obligation of Baghdad and the KRG to look after the wellbeing of Chaldo-Assyrian villages; as well as the international community, who have been silent on the matter for much too long. Chaldo-Assyrian organizations and charities cannot be asked to be wholly responsible for the population, nor should they be left out of the matter while other political entities claiming to represent the interests of the community, enact policies that do not actually benefit Chaldo-Assyrians living in Northern Iraq. Greater awareness thanks to Chaldo-Assyrians living in the diaspora has led to more discourse on the plight of the community, but it remains on the perpetrators of injustice and the political entities that remain quiet to answer to the perilous situation of Chaldo-Assyrians.