ASSYRO-CHALDEANS.

Northern Advocate, 19 June 1920, Page 6

ASSYRO-CHALDEANS.

DESCENDENTS OF ANCIENT PEOPLES

INTERVIEW WITH PEACE DELEGATES

Mr Said A. Namik and Mr Rustem Narjib, who are tne i"°*>t cnarmiug of gentlemen, were in __ondon for *

lew days in t-neu* capacity oi AssyroChaldean deleg*ai.es to the Peaci

Conference, and ia conversation explained to a correspondent of tne

• observer" what i. was they sought, rhey speak perfect trench.

The Assyro-Chaiueans are the newest and probably trie oldest poepi c in the world —newest because they hav e only just adopted the hyphenated name, oldest because they are Uie direct descendants of the ancient Assyrians and Clui'deans whose story goes back as far as 4600 _>.(_. —more tnan twic c as far before the birtn of Christ as we have travelled since. They hav e decided to take their part in the world-wide movement for national indpendence, and therefore sent two delegates to state their case in Paris last summer.

"The descendants of the Assyrians of the Assyrians and the Chaldeans," said the [ wo delegates to me, "people of the same 1- ace who for forty centuries, under one domination or another, hav e constituted two great empires, are to-day united again for the purpose of reviving their glorious past, and they have decided, as a symbol of their ethnical unity, to assume the name of Assyro-Chaldeans.'" AREA MAPPED OUT

This people is mainly to be found in a larg e tract of country midway between the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas, in th c east of Turkey, the west of Persia, and the north of Mesopotamia. They have mapped out this district, in which the chief cities are Mosul, Diarbekir, and Urmia, and their delegates are claiming it as their own—not, as they were anxious to explain, as an immediately independent State, but one to be administered by a mandatory Power for several years. They modestly disclaim the ability as yet to govern themselves, but with proper coaching on the part of a Western Power, they have the will, and ar e certain to prove apt pupils.

A point which the delegates wanted especially to emphasise was the great importance that attached to the fact of their being a vigorous Christian nation sandwiched between Turks, Arabs, and Persians. Recent experience suggests that this position is by no means an enviable on c for the Assyro-Chaldeans themselves; but the two delegates proudly pointed out that, through all these centuries their people had maintained both their nationality and their religion intact in the face of bitter persecution They were the first nation to embrace Christianty. Medes Persians, Parthians, Arabs, Mongols, Turks have subjected them to constant persecution throughout their history, and they have had their share of the Turkish visitations during the war FOUGHT WITH ALLIES It may come as a surprise to many people to learn that the AssyroChaldeans have fought throughout the war on th 6 side of the Allies. They started with a force of 3000 men, who fought with the Russian Army, and had four Russian generals specially attached to them. In 1917 when the Bolshevik revolution put an end to Russia's participation in th c war > the Assyro-Chaldeans fought on independently, and, indeed, as the delegates explained, many high Russian officers thereafter voluntarily joind the Assyro-Chaldean forces. In the middle of the war the position was complicated by the fact that two concentric Kurdish and Turkish invasions of the mountainous district of Hakkiari took place, but were successfully repulsed. In the latter part of the war a front against the ; Turks, extending from th c Black Sea to Hamadan, was held in three sections by Georgians, Armenians, and Assyro-Chaldeans respectively.

(The Turks broke through and drove a wedge between the two latter but the Assyro-Chaldean forces successfully got into touch with the British ! forces to the south

In presenting Uieir case to the Peace Conference, the Assyro-Chal-dean delegates ask for a territory bounded on th e west by the Euphrates, on the east by the Persian frontier (although in the north taking in a portion of Persia), on th c north by a line Kharput-Bitlis-Salmas; on the south by a line Calat-Haroli-Tek-rit-Kifri They maintain that among the twenty nationalities represented in this territory, their own has a substantial majority They further ask for sea-outlets by Alexandretta to th c Mediterranean and by the Tigris to the Persian Gulf; and finally desire that their autonomy shall be guaranteed by "the powers of the Entente and by the Leagu e of Nations"—a subtle combination which again suggests the accumulated wisdom of ages