Breitbart | 052318
The future of Christianity in its cradle of Iraq is contingent upon the establishment of a separate province for the persecuted minority, an Iraqi member of parliament recently elected to represent Assyrian Christians argued in an interview with Breitbart News.
Iraqi MP-elect Emmanuel Khoshaba Youkhanna pledged to urge Baghdad to allow the establishment of an autonomous region for Christians, which he believes critical to the future of the minority group.
“If they have a province like the other 19 provinces in Iraq, I think Christians will have a future,” he told Breitbart News.
Of the 329 seats in the Iraqi parliament, Baghdad has allocated five for the Christian minority group under a quota system: in Baghdad, Erbil, Duhok, Kirkuk, and Mosul.
Breitbart News recently spoke to Youkhanna, a former Assyrian Christian commander who took on the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and now holds the Christian seat for Duhok province in Iraqi Kurdistan.