French president visits historic religious sites in Baghdad, Nineveh
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – As part of a two-day trip to Iraq, French President Emmanuel Macron has visited historical religious sites, where he stressed the importance of tolerance and celebrating diversity.
Macron arrived in Baghdad on Saturday, where he participated in Iraq’s regional summit – dubbed Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership – along with nine other leaders. He later visited religious sites in Baghdad and Mosul.
The first stop was at the shrines of Imam Musa al-Kadhim and Mohammad bin Ali al-Jawad in Baghdad, accompanied by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi Saturday evening.
بالصور / رئيس مجلس الوزراء السيد مصطفى الكاظمي والرئيس الفرنسي السيد إيمانويل ماكرون يزوران ضريح الإمامين الكاظمين (عليهما السلام) pic.twitter.com/kFRZLSwYer
— المكتب الإعلامي لرئيس الوزراء 🇮🇶 (@IraqiPMO) August 28, 2021
Annually, millions of Shiite followers of Islam visit the shrines as part of a pilgrimage
It is the first such visit by a French president to the site.
Later, the French leader flew to the Kurdistan Region, where he was received by President Nechirvan Barzani and a number of senior Kurdish officials during a welcoming ceremony at Erbil International Airport.
Macron spent the night in the Kurdish capital before heading to Mosul.
Church of Our Lady of the Hour became the French president’s first destination in Mosul. Part of the building remains in ruins, due to the city's takeover by ISIS in 2014 and the subsequent Iraqi military campaign to free it from the terrorists.
The United Nation's cultural organ is currently restoring the church.
French President Emmanuel Macron tours around Our Lady of the Hour Church in Mosul. pic.twitter.com/sPvhqxSbKo
— Kurdistan 24 English (@K24English) August 29, 2021
Macron later met with Christian clergymen from Nineveh province and the Kurdistan Region to discuss religious coexistence and combatting extremism.
When ISIS attacked the Christians in the Nineveh Plains, the Kurdistan Region embraced those fleeing the onslaught and protected them, said Mor Nicodemos Daoud Matti Sharaf, Metropolitan of Mosul & Environs, to the French president.
French President Emmanuel Macron is at the Our Lady of the Hour Church in Iraq's second city of Mosul.
— Kurdistan 24 English (@K24English) August 29, 2021
📸Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP - August 29, 2021 pic.twitter.com/jvJ4l9SyAE
"This message is civilizational but also geopolitical. There will be no balance in Iraq if there is no respect for these communities," Marcon said Saturday.
The Nineveh Plains contains important religious sites of the Christian, Islamic--both Sunni and Shia--, and the Yezidi (Ezidi) faiths.
The French president also visited Al-Nouri Mosque, from where slain ISIS figurehead Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi first declared a caliphate in 2014. The mosque was blown up by the terrorists in 2017.