On Wednesday, 21 June 2006, a delegation representing the Assyrian Universal Alliance headed to Canberra to meet with Australian parliamentary Assyrian friendship group, chaired by Mr. Bruce Baird MP, Liberal Party and Mr. Chris Bowen MP, Labor Party. This Parliamentary group was established by Mr Bowen to lobby the Assyrian case in the Australian Federal Parliament. The group is formed of three senators and five members of Parliament from both leading political parties the Liberal and Labor.

During the meeting which lasted an hour and a half a submission was presented to the Australian government calling on the Australian Government to support the plight of the Assyrians in Iraq and immediately take the necessary steps to secure this indigenous people, from further harm coming to them, in their ancestral homeland in North Iraq by the immediate establishment of an Assyrian Region as promulgated under Article 121 of the Iraqi Constitution in Northern Iraq, the ancestral homeland of the indigenous Assyrians.

The Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) is pleased to announce that the meeting was very fruitful and that recommendations were made to proceed with this matter to the higher authorities. In the meantime we were honoured to have few more new friends from both senators and members of the parliament joining the lobby group.

Later in the day the Hon. Senator Marise Payne, when speaking in the Senate about Iraq, gave the statement below about the meeting.

The Assyrian Universal Alliance would like to thank Mr Chris Bowen MP and Mr Paul Azzo, active Assyrian in the Liberal, for organising this important meeting upon request from the AUA, we also would like to thank the Australian parliamentary Assyrian friendship group for their attendance and the commitment showed at the meeting.

To read Senator Marise Payne speech, click here, then go to page 116-117.

Assyrian Universal Alliance