Kurdish minority groups withdraw from drafting constitution

A group of Turkmen and Christian lawmakers in the Kurdish parliament yesterday 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 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.