IRAQ: Kurdistan Regional Government Minister positive on including history of smaller indigenous components in official school curriculum

ANKAWA/ERBIL, Iraq – In a meeting this week between KRG Region Minister Aydin Maruf and representatives of Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian cultural organizations, the Minister charged with the rights of indigenous components’ rights in the Kurdish Regional Government expressed his support to incorporate the history of the indigenous components of the Kurdish Region in Iraq in the official curriculum of the Region. The meeting took place in Erbil and was attended by assistent professor at Erbil’s Catholic University Habib Hanna of the Hadiab Society for Competencies, and Rawand Boulos president of the Syriac Writers Union.

In a report to news website Ankawa.com, Rawand Boulos said the Syriac Writers Union has advocated with the Minister that the history of indigenous peoples of the Region should be taught alongside the history of the Kurds of the Region. And their history should be incorporated in the official curriculum of primary, high schools and in higher education in the Region. The president of the Syriac Writers Union said that this official history should be written by academics, historians and scholars of the indigenous components themselves. Rawand Boulous also proposed to have a faculty for Syriac language studies opened in Nohadra (Dohuk Province).

Rawand Boulos stated that Minister Maruf expressed his support for this initiative which will contribute to peaceful coexistence of the peoples in the Region. And that the Kurdish regional government is positive in starting a project to include the history of indigenous peoples of the Region in the official curriculum.

The Minister also proposed a commission to be set up, formed from cultural, civil and linguistic organizations of the smaller indigenous peoples of the Region in order for them to move things forward and increase their role in the society of the Kurdish Region in Iraq. Minister Maruf is of the Turkmen component and heads the Turkmen Front.

The meeting took place in times of an ongoing Turkish incursion into the Kurdish Region of Iraq. Since June 16th, Turkish military forces targeting members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party have entered the northern border area with a ground and air offensive. The Turkish military has set up some 36 bases also in areas of Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian villages. The Turkish incursion has caused more than 5,000 Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians to flee their villages.