Several representatives of Iraqi minority groups considered to be some of the oldest inhabitants of the country, including the Assyrian Christians and Yazidis, have joined forces to urge Baghdad and the international community to allow them to establish a semi-autonomous region in northwestern Iraq.

The minority groups’ alliance, which also includes members of the Shiite Turkmen and Shabak community, has agreed to call their territory the Al Rafidein Region, according to David Lazar, chairman of the American Mesopotamian Organization. Lazar said in a statement:

Finally, in 2017, after all of the genocides, ethnic cleansings, persecutions, abuse, and injustice, representatives of the Turkmens, Assyrians, Yezidis and Shabak peoples are declaring a new coalition to brings their peoples together for the defense of their lives and the assertion of their rights as specified in the constitution of the Republic of Iraq.

“The coalition has an aggressive legislative strategy in place, one that will engage members of the United States Congress, Ministers of the Iraqi Parliament, and key members of the international community,” he added. “Their aim is to establish this region as a semi-autonomous area with its own parliament, policies and defensive force, similar in composition and function to the Kurdish regional area in northern Iraq.”

The coalition has brought together various groups representing the different minority groups, including the Turkmen Rescue Foundation (TRF), representing the Shiite Turkmen; the Al Rafedin Organization, representing the Assyrian Christians; and the Yazidi Independent Supreme Council, representing the Yazidis.

Dr. Ali Akram Al Bayati, a Shiite Turkmen who serves as TRF chief, told Breitbart News of the coalition:

We support it. The only way for us to keep our nations and people away from continuous attacks of terrorism is by establishing some form of self-administration under the Iraqi constitution and with the support of the international community, as they have supported the creation of northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).

In November 2016, Al-Monitor reported that some Christians were seeking to create an autonomous territory in the Nineveh Plain region, home to many of the nation’s Christians and Yazidis. The region would take in refugees fleeing the city of Mosul after its liberation from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Mosul, considered ISIS’s last major stronghold in Iraq, is expected to soon fall under the control of U.S.-backed local forces.

Also in November of last year, various Assyrian Christian militias came together to fight as an alliance to recapture their historical homeland in northern Iraq from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

The Nineveh Plains, a region in northern Iraq’s Nineveh province, is the historical homeland of the Iraqi Christian community, considered one of the oldest in the world.

Christians, Yazidis, and Shiite Turkmen have been victims of genocide at the hands of ISIS and other jihadist groups, the United States and the United Nations have acknowledged.