Shafaq News- Erbil
The Vatican on Wednesday praised the Kurdistan Region’s support for Christians and other minorities during a meeting between Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and the Vatican’s ambassador to Iraq, Apostolic Nuncio Miroslaw Wachowski.
Wachowski conveyed the “appreciation and gratitude” of Pope Leo XIV to Barzani for promoting peaceful coexistence in the Region, saying that Iraqi Kurdistan holds “a special place” in the Pope’s heart.
Barzani, meanwhile, reaffirmed the Kurdistan Regional Government’s support for the success of Wachowski’s mission in Iraq. The two sides also discussed the KRG’s reform agenda and ongoing talks surrounding the formation of Iraq’s new federal government.
Iraq’s Christian population has fallen sharply over the past two decades, declining from about 1.5 million before the 2003 US-led invasion to between 150,000 and 250,000 today, according to Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, former Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The decline accelerated after ISIS seized large parts of northern Iraq in 2014, displacing hundreds of thousands of Christians and other minorities, many of whom fled to the Kurdistan Region, particularly Erbil and Duhok.