(AINA) -- The final statement signed on September 17, 1998 by the leaders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Washington outlined a timetable for the normalization of the three northern provinces of Iraq including Arbil, Dohuk, and Suleimaniyah.

The purpose of the discussions and the resulting agreement was to reverse the spiraling deterioration in the political and security situation in northern Iraq that was brought about by all out internecine fighting by rival Sorani and Bahdinani Kurdish ethnic groups and political parties.

According to the statement timetable, October 15th marked the deadline for an "agreement on restoration of property or compensation by responsible parties." Specifically, the interim higher coordination committee was "to establish a process to help repatriate everyone who had to leave their homes in the three northern provinces as a result of the prior conflict between the parties, and to restore their property or compensate them for their losses."

Unfortunately, the attention of the various conflicting Kurdish ethnic groups has been solely on restoration of their own properties. Since the Gulf war, more than fifty Assyrian villages have been at least partially occupied by Kurdish forces often at gunpoint. Sometimes these land expropriations were carried out on the orders of and to the benefit of the leaders of the major Kurdish ethnic groups and political parties. At no time were any of the illegal land expropriations ever reversed or compensation paid by local Kurdish authorities.

The problem is so widespread that an Assyrian member of the parliament of northern Iraq, Mr. Francis Shabo was entrusted almost solely with Assyrian land issues. Mr. Shabo was reported by Amnesty International in their February, 1995 human rights report on northern Iraq as being primarily responsible for the adjudication of "complaints submitted by Assyrian Christians regarding disputed villages in Bahdinan from which they had been forcibly evicted by the Iraqi Government and subsequently resettled by Kurds." In their investigation into Mr. Shabo's May 31, 1993 assassination, Amnesty International reported that they had "received the names of people said to be linked to the KDP's First Liq who were allegedly responsible for the killings."

Most of the 52 Assyrian villages occupied by Kurds since the Gulf War are in a predominantly Assyrian area commonly referred to as the Assyrian triangle in northern Iraq centered around the environs of Mosul nearby the ruins of Nineveh, the ancient Assyrian capital. Apart from the illegal occupation of Assyrian lands since the Gulf war, Kurds have also resettled nearly two hundred Assyrian villages that had been destroyed by the Iraqi government. In a deliberate policy to uproot and subsequently resettle Assyrians into the Baghdad area, the Iraqi government had razed over 200 Assyrian villages in the 1970's. Prior to this destruction of Assyrian villages in the north, the Assyrians formed the majority demographic population in certain areas of northern Iraq.

The 1957 Iraqi census detailed the predominantly Assyrian villages prior to the Iraqi policy of destruction and resettlement and the subsequent resettlement of those villages by Kurds. Other demographic maps commissioned by French agencies in 1961 have also delineated the demographic makeup of Assyrian villages in northern Iraq. Even today after all of the destruction by the Iraqi state and all of the Kurdish land expropriations, Assyrian villages still form the majority demographic group in some areas extending from Mosul north to Dohuk and northwest towards Fesh Khabur near the Syrian border.

The Assyrian demographic predominance in this area and the attendant Kurdish demographic vulnerability is the most likely reason that much of the Assyrian area has not been included as part of the Final Statement declaration between the PUK and KDP even though that area lies north of the 36th parallel. The starkest example remains Mosul which has not been included among the other three named northern provinces of Arbil, Dohuk, and Suleimaniyah.

Continued Kurdish silence and inaction regarding Assyrian land claims raises concerns that different Kurdish groups hope to consolidate and possibly extend their illegal territorial gains at the expense of the Assyrian community. These developments are especially worrisome when seen in the context of the recent bombings and assassinations suffered by Assyrians in northern Iraq.