Syriac Christians from Turkey and Syria attend a mass at the Mort Shmuni Syriac Orthodox Church in the town of Midyat, in Mardin province of southeast Turkey in this February 2, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File
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Birut-
Some of Syria’s Christians fear that their existence in the post-war Syria
would be threatened, particularly following the latest political and military
developments accompanying the crisis.
Those
Christians expressed their worries after they were ruled out from the upcoming
Geneva talks as a “Christian element,” and because the Syriac language was not
included in the draft constitution that a Russian delegation handed over to
representatives of the Syrian regime in Damascus last month to provide equality
between Kurdish and Arabic language in local administrative areas.
Also,
those Christians fear that the presence of a large military arsenal in the
hands of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) would be later used to
force them be part of the next federal regime in northern Syria.
Assyrian
and Syriac Christians in Syria describe their situation in two words: “Feeling
of injustice” and “exclusion.”
Director
of the Assyrian Human Rights Monitor Jamil Diarbakirli explained that in Syria,
only the powerful armed groups were referring their cases to the international
forums.
Diarbakirli
told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Syriac armed factions; currently operating in
northern Syria, do not work for the benefit of the Syriac population as a
Christian entity in the Middle East because those groups follow orders of the
forces financing them, such as the SDF or the National Defense Forces militias.
“Following
the war, we will face a problem of the uncontrolled spread of arms,”
Diarbakirli warned.
Christians
in northern Syria are also concerned about the problem of arms. Suleiman
al-Youssef, researcher in Assyrian affairs in Syria told Asharq Al-Awsat:
“There are worrying questions related to the fate of the arms carried by the
SDF after they crush ISIS.”
However,
Ibrahim Ibrahim, a spokesman for a Kurdish political party called the
Democratic Union Party in Europe said those Christian fears were the result of
ideas implanted by the Baath Party to destroy the confidence of Syrians in each
other.
“Those
fears are unjustified because things changed and the self-governance guarantees
the rights of all parties and therefore, would not allow any force to violate
the rights of Syriacs, Assyrians or any other groups,” Ibrahim told Asharq
Al-Awat.
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