this is in part due to the term "syriac" being generally accepted by the majority of scholars to be a 9th-century bc derivation of "assyrian" which for many centuries was used in specific and sole relation to the assyrians and assyria, and in part because the majority of the christian population of these areas are not geographically from what was assyria or mesopotamia, and thus do not identify with an assyrian heritage in the way that the "pre-arab", "pre-islamic" mesopotamian assyrians from iraq, north-east syria, south-east turkey, iran and the caucasus naturally do.