Iraqi Turkmen: ‘No’ to Biased Draft Constitution
On 11 August 2015, a group of Turkmen and Christian representatives in the Kurdish Parliament took a unanimous decision and stepped down from the constitution drafting committee, questioning the credibility and impartiality of the draft text. MP Aidan Marouf, affiliated with the Turkmen Front, maintained in an interview with Anadolu Agency, that "the committee refused our proposal to consider the Turkmen language an official language and to add a colour into the region's flag that symbolizes us so we pull out of it."
Below is an article by Assyrian International News Agency
A group of Turkmen and Christian lawmakers in the Kurdish parliament yesterday [11 August 2015] announced their withdrawal from "the Constitution Drafting Committee", because of its "failure to achieve their demands".
Member of the Turkmen Front MP Aidan Marouf said: "The Turkmen are the second largest component in the region; therefore the draft constitution should be amended to take their aspirations into consideration."
In remarks to Turkey's Anadolu Agency, Marouf said: "The committee refused our proposal to consider the Turkmen language an official language and to add a colour into the region's flag that symbolizes us so we pull out of it."
Christian [Assyrian] member of the Constitution Drafting Committee, MP Soroud Saleem said: "The proposals which consider minorities have been rejected."
"We demanded Syriac be recognised as an official language to preserve our identity in compliance with the law which stipulates that languages of ethnic minorities should be considered official languages, but no clear decision in this regard has been made so far," he added.
The Kurdish parliament recently formed a committee composed of 21 deputies, representing different political parties to draft a constitution within six months.
Photo Courtesy: TurkmenKerkuk @ Flickr
