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The Assyrians and Kurdish Autonomy in Syria
AINA ^ | 8-20-2013 | Augin K. Haninke

Posted on 08/29/2013 9:45:23 AM PDT by Freeport

(AINA) -- The Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD), a branch of Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK), recently declared that they want to form a Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria. The area in Syria called al-Jazeera is now called Rojava in Kurdish media. At first I thought it was the name of a Kurdish village outside Qamishle, but a friend explained that Rojava means the "West" in Kurdish and the Kurds see it as the western part of "Kurdistan."

If such autonomy becomes a reality, is there any place for Assyrians? Is there room in a future ruled by Kurds, considering what happened in northern Iraq?

Analysts I talked to are optimistic and see a difference from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in north Iraq. Assyrians make up about 30% of al-Jazeera's population and should have better conditions, they say. But the biggest threat to Assyrians is emigration, since many are fleeing to seek a better life in the West.

The city of Qamishle, in northeast Syria, was formed shortly after the 1915 genocide of Assyrians by Turks and Kurds. My great-grandmother, who died in 1978, used to tell us that she had seen with her own eyes when Qamishle consisted of only three households, one of which belonged to our cousins, the Haddad family. The young brothers Yusuf and Davud Haddad were smiths who had survived the genocide. Their father Elyas, a member of Nisibins city council, was beheaded in 1915 along with his wife, family and other Assyrians in Nisibin. His children, two sons and a daughter, he had left in safe custody with an Arab family. These young people then built the third house in Qamishle in the 1920s.

(Excerpt) Read more at aina.org ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: armenia; assyria; circassians; civilwar; iran; iraq; kurdishautonomy; kurdistan; lebanon; syria; turkey
If we're going to arm a group, how about one we actually work well with? The Turks won't like it, but what other viable alternatives are there?
1 posted on 08/29/2013 9:45:23 AM PDT by Freeport
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To: Freeport
If we're going to arm a group, how about one we actually work well with? The Turks won't like it, but what other viable alternatives are there?

Are all these people filling out 4473s and passing F, B, and I background checks?

I didn't think so.

2 posted on 08/29/2013 9:57:00 AM PDT by Standing Wolf (No tyrant should ever be allowed to die of natural causes.)
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To: Freeport

The fact that there are groups of humans that refuse to work together towards living together in peace spells doom for their future. Fighting and killing each other over religion differences and long past slights only insures future misery.


3 posted on 08/29/2013 10:00:35 AM PDT by soycd
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To: Freeport

It’s an absolute travesty what’s happened/happening to the Christians in the Middle East. Assyrians, Chaldeans, Coptics.


4 posted on 08/29/2013 10:02:53 AM PDT by Darren McCarty (Abortion - legalized murder for convenience)
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To: Freeport
If we're going to arm a group, how about one we actually work well with? The Turks won't like it, but what other viable alternatives are there?

"We" don't work well with the Kurds much anymore, like the Christians, we've been screwing 'em and abandoning 'em considerably.

Conversely, "we" love the new Islamofascist Turkish government and are very pleased with their shilling for NATO.

Anybody arming the Kurds would be throwing a monkey wrench in the Muslim Brotherhood "Arab Spring" Caliphate progress.

5 posted on 08/29/2013 10:06:14 AM PDT by Navy Patriot (Join the Democrats, it's not Fascism when WE do it, and the Constitution and law mean what WE say.)
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To: Navy Patriot
And there's a problem with that? Sounds like my kind’a wrench...
6 posted on 08/29/2013 10:25:45 AM PDT by Freeport (The proper application of high explosives will remove all obstacles.)
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To: Freeport

Aren’t the Kurds about the only sane folks in the region? They just want to draw a border and be left alone. AFAIK they want to insulate themselves from Arabs and they don’t really care for any brand of religious extremism.

Please correct me with facts if I am misinformed. I would love to learn more of the dynamics from that area.


7 posted on 08/29/2013 10:47:03 AM PDT by lurk
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To: lurk
The Kurds were the victims of an historic injustice in never being given the right of self-determination--although if they had been allowed their own nation-state, who's to say how well they would have managed it.

Nikos Kazantzakis in one of his books talks about going on a rescue mission to save Greeks who were being massacred by Kurds, some time after WWI. I don't recall which country they were living in.

8 posted on 08/29/2013 12:08:06 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Freeport
And there's a problem with that? Sounds like my kind’a wrench...

It was a suggestion, not a complaint, and one of the many things Russia and China could do to foul up Zer0's war.

9 posted on 08/29/2013 3:00:33 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (Join the Democrats, it's not Fascism when WE do it, and the Constitution and law mean what WE say.)
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