The Culture and Antiquities Council of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria condemned the statements made by the Syrian regime’s Minister of Culture regarding the Syriac language.

A press statement addressing the issue was read in Arabic, Syriac, and Kurdish outside the council building in Raqqa.

The statement, denouncing the words of the Syrian regime’s Minister of Culture Muhammad Salih, emphasized that such remarks are the product of a totalitarian and exclusionary mindset.

The minister had claimed during a television program that Syriac is merely an old dialect of Arabic.

The Culture Council condemned the statement, stressing that it represented a direct attack on Syriac identity.

Syriac is an independent language

In the remainder of the Culture Council’s statement, it was emphasized that Syriac is an independent language and that respect must be shown to a language that has thousands of years of history.

The statement also warned that such rhetoric reflects a repetition of the same mistakes committed by the Baath regime in the past.