By Baghdadhope*
The meeting among the different ethnic groups in Kirkuk which took place on last Thursday and organized by the Chaldean Archbishopric of the city achieved its first successes as referred to Baghdadhope by Archbishop Louis Sako.
The imams of the city had positive words for the meeting in the Friday speeches in the mosques, a committee formed by a Christian, a Kurd, a Turkoman and an Arab was set up to track its developments, the president of the provincial council, a Turkoman, said that if Baghdad failed Kirkuk, instead, made an historic step, and a Kurdish tribal sheikh recognized the conciliatory role of the church in building what the title of the meeting had promised: bridges of peace.
The imams of the city had positive words for the meeting in the Friday speeches in the mosques, a committee formed by a Christian, a Kurd, a Turkoman and an Arab was set up to track its developments, the president of the provincial council, a Turkoman, said that if Baghdad failed Kirkuk, instead, made an historic step, and a Kurdish tribal sheikh recognized the conciliatory role of the church in building what the title of the meeting had promised: bridges of peace.
Following the original final document of the meeting by the Chaldean Archbishopric of Kirkuk.
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Forum in Kirkuk "Let us build bridges for peace"
Proposed by archbishop L.Sako
In a initiative from the Chaldean Catholic archdiocese of Kirkuk and in its hospitality, a forum was organized by it as a godfather, under the Motto "Let us build bridges for peace" as un effort of reconciliation of all political, religious leaders and responsible of the local government. The forum took place in the big hall of the cathedral, in the morning of Thursday 26 of April 2012, more than 50 persons attended it, and at the end they released this document of convention:
So to not stop at the borders of wishes and speeches, so to not give up to the painful reality, so to play our responsible, we pledge as much as it depends on us, to be involved to implement the points of this Covenant, which we declare today for all.
1 - We pledge to continue to live together and maintain the mosaic formation of the city of Kirkuk in harmony and respect.
2 - We pledge to resolve the outstanding problems by sitting together and dialogue smoothly beyond all kinds of threat and violence. Violence will not change and improve the situation, but on the contrary, it will drown our city in a series of injustice, deprivation and underdevelopment.
3 - We pledge to seek the dismantling of hate speech, marginalization, and exclusion and to maintain the culture of reconciliation, and cohesion and calming the situation.
4 – to get to a consensus about the election of the members of the province council which assure the participation of all components.
5- We call on relevant authorities to study the dossiers of detained people and to admit them to the court to see their cases without waiting for long wile that the innocent of them can return to their families, as well as to resolve with justice and wisdom the subject of the disputed territory.
6- We urge the Iraqi central government and the government of Kurdistan to resolve the problems instead to complicate them which affect badly the situation specifically in the fields of service, economy, security etc ..
7 –To Form a committee to manage the diversities and differences and to follow up the dialogue and to activate it in preparing other meetings.
So in this spirit, we have worked to abolish the barriers among us and that we looked at each other as free persons, and looked for peace and not the rivalries and disagreements ,we want to be peace makers indeed.