At the European Union & Council of Europe

WCA engages with the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). Through position papers, proposed amendments, and direct meetings with parliamentarians, WCA ensures that the Aramean perspective is reflected in European policy-making.

A notable outcome is the adoption of WCA-proposed amendments in European Parliament resolutions on Turkey, specifically referencing the property rights of the Aramean community and the protection of the Mor Gabriel Monastery (founded in 397 AD). The PACE incorporated WCA’s input in its Resolution 1704, addressing land rights and the legal status of the Aramean people.

WCA delegations have been received as guests of parliamentarians at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg during sessions where Turkey’s President and Foreign Minister addressed the Parliamentary Assembly. In 2018, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the human rights situation in Turkey that explicitly condemned the confiscation of over 50 Aramean churches, monasteries, and cemeteries in the province of Mardin — calling on the European Commission to address this with the Turkish authorities. WCA also co-organized a conference in the EU Parliament, entitled Turkey, EU and the Arameans of Southeast Turkey.

On the Syria file, WCA has maintained close contact with Members of the European Parliament, including the EU’s Syria Rapporteur, and officials responsible for humanitarian and development assistance — ensuring the Aramean perspective remains part of the European policy conversation. In 2025, WCA addressed EU High Representative Kaja Kallas with a Strategic Partnership Proposal on Syria’s indigenous Aramean people.

WCA is preparing a new EU-focused campaign on a pressing issue affecting the Aramean people — follow our work to stay informed.

Advocating for Survival and Inclusion

Since the onset of the Syrian conflict, WCA has been at the forefront of international advocacy for the protection of Syria’s Aramean Christian communities — through statements before the UN Human Rights Council and the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, formal letters to the UN Security Council and heads of state, and during a critical period the establishment of a dedicated WCA Syria Helpline.

WCA has documented attacks on Aramean villages, the displacement of families, and the targeting of communities by multiple armed groups. It has advocated for a diplomatic resolution and for the inclusion of Aramean voices in political processes shaping Syria’s future.

At the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, WCA has repeatedly warned the international community that the indigenous Aramean people of Syria and Iraq are facing extinction — urging immediate action to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

WCA co-organized a side event at the United Nations to raise awareness about Syria’s Christian population. Among the speakers was Mariela Shaker, a talented violinist from Aleppo who delivered a very moving performance. In 2013, with support from WCA, Shaker was able to travel to the United States on a scholarship, where she subsequently sought asylum; she currently lives with her family in the UK.

WCA has engaged directly with foreign ministers and senior officials across Europe on the Syria file — including successive Dutch and German ministers of state responsible for Syria policy — to ensure the Aramean perspective is part of the diplomatic conversation. In February 2025, WCA presented a Strategic Partnership Proposal to the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, outlining how Poland’s EU leadership can contribute to Syria’s stabilization and the protection of its indigenous Aramean people.

When the Aramean community of Maaloula — one of the last places in Syria where Aramaic is still spoken — came under severe pressure from armed groups, WCA mobilized an urgent international campaign that drew widespread attention and led to tangible results on the ground, earning the gratitude of Maaloula’s residents.

On 5 March 2025, the WCA President addressed the Dutch Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission on the situation of Syria’s Aramean people — urging The Netherlands and Europe to act before it is too late.

In northeastern Syria, cities such as Qamishli and Hasakah — until a few decades ago predominantly Aramean in character, including having Aramean mayors — have seen a systematic erosion of Aramean rights under YPG-led SDF structures. Since 2014, WCA has documented the imposition of Kurdish curricula, forced recruitment, interference with property, and the intimidation of Aramean communities. Christian participation in governance was largely symbolic — reduced to tokenism rather than genuine partnership.

The recent removal of Aramaic from official signage in Hasakah, following the appointment of a Kurdish governor, laid bare the limits of the narrative of coexistence — revealing that earlier representations of pluralism were expendable once politically convenient.

The self-styled “Rojava” or “Western (Kurdistan)” project, which claimed authority over areas historically shaped by Aramean presence, has effectively collapsed following the loss of most of its previously controlled territory. Yet as negotiations between Damascus and the SDF have focused exclusively on Kurdish rights, Arameans have been sidelined entirely. The remaining 30,000–50,000 Christians in the Jazira region are predominantly Arameans and remain acutely vulnerable.

WCA insists that any negotiation framework that refers exclusively to “Kurdish areas” constitutes a historical reinterpretation, and that Syria’s political settlement cannot be complete as long as Arameans, the country’s oldest indigenous people, and their Aramaic language are not recognized on an equal footing. As WCA stated in January 2026: “Syria cannot be rebuilt by trading one people’s recognition for another’s exclusion.”

In Germany, WCA has built strong relations with the Federal Foreign Office on Syria policy. In 2025, the WCA President and Daniyel Demir, Chairman of the Bundesverband der Aramäer in Deutschland, held substantive discussions with Minister of State Serap Güler — the government representative responsible for the Syria file — on securing an inclusive Syria in which the Arameans and the Aramaic language are equally recognized and supported. This continues the cooperation with her predecessor, Minister of State Tobias Lindner.

Today, WCA calls for a new Syrian constitution that guarantees equality, justice, and protection for all citizens — with explicit recognition of the Aramean people and their Aramaic language. WCA’s position paper, 7 Essential Policy Recommendations for Syria’s Future, outlines actionable proposals for constitutional recognition, minority protection, inclusive governance, cultural preservation, property restitution, diaspora engagement, and international oversight.

On 9 February 2026, a WCA delegation presented a formal letter addressed to the Syrian President to Syria’s Ambassador to the EU in Brussels. Titled From Aramaic to Arabic: Syria’s Civilization, Law, and Future, the letter speaks to the place of the Aramean people in Syria’s future and calls for recognition, inclusion, and the protection of Syria’s oldest living heritage. Preparations are underway for a meeting in Damascus.

Constitutional Recognition and Survival

When the war in Iraq began in 2003, an estimated 1.4 million Aramean Christians — including Chaldeans, Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, and members of the Church of the East — called the country home. Today, around 200,000 remain. What happened in between is one of the most devastating chapters of modern Christian persecution: churches bombed, priests kidnapped and murdered, entire neighborhoods emptied at gunpoint, and families forced to choose between conversion, exile, or death.

In 2010, the Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad was stormed during Sunday mass — 52 Aramean worshippers were killed in what remains one of the deadliest attacks on Christians in the Middle East. In August 2014, ISIS swept through the Nineveh Plain, driving over 160,000 Aramean Christians from their ancestral homes in a single week. Christian homes were marked with the Arabic letter nūn for “Nazarene” — branded as property of the Islamic State. At least 30 churches in the Mosul province were seized or burned.

WCA responded to these crises at every level. In August 2014, WCA submitted an urgent letter to the UN Security Council with 5 demands for the survival of the Aramean people in Iraq — demands that remain relevant to this day. At the UN Human Rights Council, WCA called for the creation of a special UN Fund for Threatened Indigenous Peoples of the Middle East. And in 2016, following sustained advocacy by WCA and others, the European Parliament adopted a resolution formally recognizing ISIS’s acts as genocide against the minorities of Iraq and Syria.

In September 2014, WCA co-organized with the Holy See a high-level event at the UN Office in Geneva on the crisis facing Christians in the Middle East, with a focus on Iraq. Panelists included the Chaldean Patriarch, the Syriac Catholic Patriarch, and the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Mosul. The event was followed by several meetings, including with the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

In December 2018, the United States signed into law an Act recognizing that ISIS committed genocide against the Arameans and Yezidis in Syria and Iraq — calling for the restoration of these affected indigenous peoples and their livelihoods. The WCA President, who had met with the bill’s sponsor Congressman Christopher Smith, welcomed the Act as a long-overdue step toward justice.

WCA has long advocated for the amendment of Article 125 of the Iraqi Constitution, which guarantees administrative, political, cultural, and educational rights to various nationalities — but does not mention the Aramean people by name. Without constitutional recognition, the community has no legal existence, and current Iraqi ID cards force Arameans to adopt an identity foreign to them. In a joint effort with Syriac Orthodox and Catholic Bishops in Iraq, WCA formally addressed Iraqi government officials and ambassadors across Europe, the USA, and Australia, requesting constitutional inclusion.

WCA has also engaged directly with Iraqi leadership. The WCA President has met with Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani to discuss the protection and future of Iraq’s Aramean communities.

WCA’s partnership with USAID (the U.S. government’s international development agency) to reconstruct a community center in Bartella — seized and destroyed by ISIS — stands as a tangible example of WCA’s commitment not just to advocacy, but to rebuilding. The project, completed with $250,000 from USAID (the U.S. government’s international development agency) and $100,000 from WCA, restored a vital gathering place for the Aramean community in the Nineveh Plain.

Drawing on its comprehensive Iraq Report (available in 6 languages) and its recommendations presented to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, WCA continues to call on the international community to take concrete action for Iraq’s Aramean people.

WCA urges Iraq to recognize its Aramean population as an integral part of the nation’s identity — a people whose continued presence in the Nineveh Plain is essential to Iraq’s cultural and religious pluralism.