Jewish representative office in Kurdistan re-opened after temporary suspension
The official representative of the Jewish community in the Kurdistan Region on Monday announced they re-opened their office following a meeting with the acting Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The official representative of the Jewish community in the Kurdistan Region on Monday announced they re-opened their office following a meeting with the acting Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs.
Previously, Sherzad Omar Mamsani, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative of the Jewish community posted on his official Facebook account his office had suspended their representative without giving further details.
“We have suspended our representation at the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs until an undeclared date due to some reasons,” Mamsani stated.
In a statement to Kurdistan24 on Monday, he mentioned the suspension was related to “some internal and external issues.”
Moreover, Mamsani rejected some local media reports which linked the suspension to a lack of financial support.
“We work in the Ministry as a volunteer, not as an employee,” he continued. “We understand the financial crisis in the Kurdistan Region, and the Ministry is not excluded.”
He emphasized their representative office with the Jewish community in the Region had collected an enormous amount of aid to help refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Kurdistan.
As a result, finance had never been an issue for the representative office in the Region, according to Mamsani.
He also noted he met with the Acting Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs Pishtiwan Sadiq who expressed support for the Jewish representative office and promised to resolve the issues.
“We inform everyone that the Jewish representative office will continue its duties and activities in the Ministry,” Mamsani stated in a post on his official Facebook account.
“We assure everyone that the case of coexistence and social harmony is the strategy of the [KRG],” he added.
The KRG’s Jewish representative office was opened in 2015 after the Kurdish Parliament passed a law recognizing the Jewish community, allowing them to practice their religion along with other groups in the Region.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany