Brussels (AINA) -- On September 16 the head of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, Patriarch Dinkha IV, proclaimed after a prayer service in a Syriac Orthodox church that Assyrians must work to establish an Assyrian administered unit in northern Iraq's Nineveh Plain. Patriarch Dinkha emphasized the Assyrian administrative area must comply with the Iraqi constitution and United Nations regulations.

The Patriarch reiterated Assyrians are under attack in the Middle East and it is thus necessary for the Assyrians of different church denominations to unite. Bishop Hazail Soumi, the Assyrian bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Belgium and France, was also present, giving a speech in which he said: "We are one nation but history divided us, it is time we work for unity".

In a show of solidarity the prayer service was conducted by clergy from the Apostolic Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church.

The calls for Assyrian rights in Iraq and Assyrian unity by H.H. Dinkha are adding momentum to requests made public by several other church leaders from different Assyrian church denominations.