Former Iraqi minister: Only solution for Christians is governorate

Published: 2006-10-19

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A new administrative region for Christians and other minorities in northern Iraq is the only solution to keep them from disappearing from the Shiite-majority country, said Pascale Warda, the former Iraqi minister of displacement and migration. Warda said minorities in Iraq -- Assyrian Christians, Chaldean Catholics, Shabaks, Yezidis, Turkmen and others -- do not want a divided Iraq. "We would like to organize a democratic and federalist Iraq," she said. Michael Youash, project director of the Iraqi Sustainability Democracy Project, said the administrative region with local jurisdiction would encompass the Nineveh plain and minority lands in the western part of the Dahuk region. All minorities, without exclusion, could live in the region, they said. Youash said the administrative region, or governorate, is guaranteed under a constitutional provision allowing creation of such areas for minorities. Youash and Warda spoke Oct. 18 at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

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