in western media, syriac christians are often spoken of simply as christians of their country or geographical region of residence: "iraqi christians", "iranian christians", "syrian christians", and "turkish christians". the "assyrian international news agency" interpreted this as "arabist policy of denying assyrian identity and claiming that assyrians, including chaldeans and syriacs, are arab christian minorities". john joseph states that, in anglican writing, "'assyrian christians', which originally had only meant 'the christians of geographical assyria', soon became 'christian assyrians'", and cites j. f. coakley, who remarked that, in the same context, "the link created between the modern 'assyrians' and the ancient assyrians of nineveh known to readers of the old testament [...] has proved irresistible to the imagination".