The Iraqi government must hold to account those responsible for the Yazidi Genocide, particularly the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and annul the 2020 Sinjar Agreement that undermines Yazidi’s capacity for self-defence while Turkey continues to bombard the region, delegates of the Autonomous Sinjar (Shengal) Conference said on Thursday in Baghdad.
Delegates, including Iraqi politicians, and Arab, Christian, Turkmen, Sunni, and Shia community representatives, released a final declaration in summary of the conference.
The Sinjar Agreement, signed by the KDP and the Iraqi Government without involving Yazidi representatives, aimed to facilitate easier intervention in Sinjar, undermine the will of its residents, and destroy their autonomous defence capabilities, the delegates said. The agreement paved the way for another genocide of the Yazidi people, having led to increased attacks on Sinjar by Turkish forces, they emphasised.
“As conference participants, we evaluate the [Sinjar] Agreement not in favour of the rights of the components in Iraq and Shengal, but rather as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” the declaration read.
The conference participants emphasised that it would serve the interests of both Iraq and the Sinjar populace for the federal government to engage with the Yazidi demand for self-governance, ensuring stability peace and security without external intervention. The Yazidi’s lack of self-defence capacity was regarded, in the declaration, as contributing to the 2014 genocide.
The participants noted that, lacking in self-defence forces, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the northern Syrian People’s Protection Units (YPG) mobilised at the critical moment to save the Yazidi people from genocide.
The Yazidis were not protected by the Iraqi forces, or the KDP-affiliated Peshmerga forces, the delegates stressed.
“We call upon the Iraqi Federal Court to prosecute those responsible for the massacre, including KDP officials who fled and paved the way for ISIS, as well as those with political, administrative, and military responsibilities for the massacre,” the representatives said.