ARBO, Tur Abdin -- The Assyrian village of Arbo in Tur Abdin is getting its original Assyrian name back. The renaming comes after villagers submitted an official request to the municipality of Nsibin (Nusaybin) to change the name of their village from the imposed Turkish name, Tasköy, to the original Assyrian name, Arbo, states Assyrian member of the Turkish parliament George Aryo (mandatory Turkish surname: Aslan) on his Facebook page. Aryo himself hails from Arbo.

The municipal council and Nusaybin District Governor approved the change, making it official.

Arbo is located in the Tur Izla region of Tur Abdin --the Biblical reference to a region called "Izal" in Ezekiel 27:19 could well refer to the region of Tur Izla: "and casks of wine from Izal in exchange for your wares: wrought iron, cassia and calamus."

Before the mass exodus in the 1970s-80s of Assyrians from Tur Abdin and the final evacuation by Turkish authorities in the 1990s, Arbo was one of the larger villages in the Tur Izla region. There are many ruined religious sites, shrines, and churches in the village; the main church in use is the Mor Dimet Church.

In recent years, several Assyrian families from the diaspora have built new houses. Some of the diaspora families spend several months a year in their native village or have permanently resettled in their native home village.