A member of Drafting Kurdistan Constitution Describes Our Clergies interference in Politics as a "major crime"

June 20, 2009

Translated from Arabic

in an interview with the Ankawa.com Romeo Hakkari representative of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac in the Kurdistan Parliament who is also involved in drafting the new Kurdistan Provincial Constitution, without mentioning names, criticized the interference of clerics in the political issues, to identify our people in the Kurdistan Constitution by separate names. He described the divisiveness between our people resulting from religious factionalism as a "major crime". "it is the biggest crime in this age, "we are a small nation compared to the Arabs and the Kurds in Iraq and the region."

About the right of our people to have an autonomous region, he said, "Of course, there is a special article about the self-rule, and the right to administer our own region." He wondered "What is our problem if we are one nation, this is a great responsibility and a great historic moment, no one wishes division within his own nationality, especially in these circumstances."

He criticized the interference of clerics in this matter, saying "It's not the right of any man of religion to interfere in politics, bishops and priests should be working for their church and not for anything else.

He mentioned recent Chaldean bishops visit, said: "I have documents proving that the bishops who came here, and confessed that "we are one people", and there are other documents for the offices of the largest of them, the signatories of the memorandum that "we are one people", and demanding self-government."

He added, "It is not good for the priest to speak in two directions, I will not interfere in the affairs of the church, I am a politician and I respect my church, the church should operate in the interests of our people, and not in political actions, interfering in the political affairs, instead it should maintain respectful relations between politics and religion."

He added: "We, as I said are four members representing the Chaldeans Syriac Assyrians bloc [in the Kurdistan] parliament for a period of three years, I am the representative of our Chaldean Syriac Assyrian in the constitution drafting committee for the province of Kurdistan, and possess all the documents signed by the majority of our people that "we are one people".
"We are working together positively to press our demand and help the lawmakers to understand the issue."