Stockholm (AINA) -- Four members of the Swedish liberal party Folkpartiet issued a debate article last week in the daily Aftonbladet newspaper in support of Assyrians rights in Iraq.

National MP Fredrik Malm, and politicians Cecilia Wikström (Member of the EU-parliament), Olle Wästberg (Director-General, Swedish Institute 2005-2010) and Ninos Maraha (member of the county council of Stockholm and municipal assembly of the town of Södertälje) argued in their article that Sweden must support the right of Assyrians to have their own administrative area in the Nineveh plain in North Iraq.

According to the article:

By establishing a local administration on the Nineveh plain this afflicted part of the population can gain new possibilities to found a society and protect their culture, identity and religion. But this requires a will to act from Sweden, the European Union as well as the UN. As an indigenous people the Assyrians have in fact the right to establish a local self-rule in the Nineveh plain, outside Mosul in northern Iraq. The Iraqi constitution sanctions this right, but the Iraqi leaders try to ignore it.

The four politicians aim to introduce a bill during the Liberal party's annual assembly in October which, if passed, would mean a major political party in Sweden would officially support all initiatives to help Assyrians in Iraq in their demand for their constitutional right to their own administrative area in the Nineveh plains of northern Iraq.