Debates Over Autonomy Resurface in Northern Iraq: Calls for a Nineveh Plains Province Rekindled Amid Turkmen Push

MOSUL/NINEVEH, Iraq – A renewed political push by Iraq’s Turkmen community to designate the district of Tal Afar as a separate province has reignited long-standing demands from the country’s Christian minorities for autonomous status in the Nineveh Plain. While Turkmen leaders have described their request as a step toward equitable representation, the proposal has drawn sharp criticism from Iraq’s major Sunni parties—and rekindled a broader debate over governance, identity, and the future of Iraq’s vulnerable minorities. 

Earlier this month, the Iraqi Turkmen Front submitted a formal request to elevate Tal Afar to provincial status, citing a legacy of marginalization and underrepresentation. “Our people have paid a high price fighting terrorism,” said Mohammad Semaan, a spokesperson for the Front. “Now we demand our constitutional right to manage our own affairs through a new province.” The move comes on the heels of similar demands by Yazidi leaders for Sinjar and echoes the 2014 decision by the Iraqi Council of Ministers to recognize Halabja as a separate governorate. 

However, Sunni leaders were quick to reject the Tal Afar proposal. Meeting in Mosul, tribal leaders and parliamentarians from the Azm Alliance and Sovereignty Party issued a joint statement denouncing the move as “irresponsible” and “a threat to Nineveh’s unity.” “This direction,” said one Sunni parliamentarian during the meeting, “does not reflect the will of Nineveh’s people and only paves the way for fragmentation along sectarian and ethnic lines.” 

The sharp Sunni opposition has reignited calls from Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian political parties to finally implement what they say is a long overdue plan: the establishment of the Nineveh Plain as an autonomous province. That proposal, backed by Article 125 of the Iraqi Constitution, has lingered since 2014, when then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s cabinet gave preliminary approval to the idea before it was stalled by the rise of ISIS and the subsequent war. 

For Iraq’s Christians, many of whom were displaced during the ISIS occupation, autonomy is not just a political ideal—it is a matter of survival. “We are not demanding separation from Iraq,” said Yousif Touma, a senior member of the Beth Nahrain Patriotic Union, one of the parties advocating for autonomy. “We are demanding security, stability, and the right to govern our towns, to protect our culture, our language, and our children’s future.”

Related: A Future for Christians in Iraq: A Proposal from Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian Political Parties

Christian leaders argue that the Nineveh Plain—home to towns like Baghdede (Qaraqosh), Bartella, and Tel Keppe—remain vulnerable to political neglect and demographic change. “After ISIS, our communities returned to destroyed homes and a lack of services,” said Father Amanuel Youkhana, an Assyrian priest and rights advocate. “Today, the region is fragmented between competing militias, often with no accountability. Local governance would give us a say in our own future.” 

Four Christian parties, i.e. Beth Nahrain Patriotic Union, Beth Nahrain Democratic Party, Assyrian Democratic Movement, and the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council, released a joint statement earlier this month reiterating their call for a Nineveh Plain governorate. “Decentralization through governorates is a principle of a healthy democratic system,” the statement read. “This is not a privilege—it is a right rooted in law and justice.” 

The debate takes on deeper urgency amid growing fears of depopulation. A recent report by the Shlomo Organization for Documentation revealed that the Christian population in Iraq has declined from over 1.5 million before 2003 to fewer than 250,000 today. “Without constitutional guarantees and real governance, our presence here is slowly disappearing,” said Ashur Eskrya, a former head of the Assyrian Aid Society. 

Security is also a central concern. While the Iraqi government has deployed forces across Nineveh, Christian communities insist that only a locally recruited and community-based security force can ensure stability. “No one came to protect us in 2014,” said one local leader in Baghdede (Qaraqosh). “We won’t wait again.” 

As Iraq’s political map continues to shift in the post-ISIS era, the fate of the Nineveh Plains remains a litmus test for the country’s commitment to pluralism and decentralization. In the words of one Christian lawmaker: “You cannot build a democratic Iraq if its smallest peoples are ignored.”