Declaration

 25.10.2005

On Wednesday 19, 2005 the third meeting was convened in Baghdad, Iraq, which was attended by our political parties. The Assyrian General Conference had withdrawn from the meetings, as it did not meet the Conference’s nationalistic aspirations for the following reasons:

1. Those attending the meeting attempted to promote our people as Christians, to distance us from our nationalistic agenda by forming a religious leadership that governs our political parties.

2. The political platform that was presented for the slate, contradicted the conference’s beliefs that we are one nation. It included a passage to add the Suryani name to the constitution, which opposes our principle, of mentioning our nation as one in the Iraqi constitution.

3. The meeting wants to rely on the word of, soraya or sorayi to name the slate. This is a new name imposed on our people.

4. They attempted to nullify the prior agreement from the second meeting to form the unified slate.

The Conference continued to attend all the meetings, to promote unity and to foster the closeness hoped for among our political groups. Also, the conference intended to form one slate that includes us as the indigenous people. The way the meetings were conducted was far from what we expected. This was the reason we withdrew.

Assyrian General Conference

 25.10.2005