Iraqi president to summon US envoy over remarks regarding Chaldean patriarch

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rasheed is set to summon US Ambassador to Iraq Alina L. Romanowski after the State Department Spokesperson described the president’s decree revoking the status of Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako as “harassment”.

The president’s office expressed its “disappointment at the accusations laid against the Iraqi government,” by the US Department of State, whose Spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday severely criticized President Rasheed.

The statement added the president would summon the ambassador to Iraq on the matter.

In early July, the president decided to revoke an earlier decree issued in 2013 by his predecessor Jalal Talabani who had recognized the patriarch as the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and the world as well as the custodian of the church’s properties.

The decision has drawn strong criticism from the Christians in Iraq and abroad, fearing the move is part of the attempts to further alienate the dwindling religious community.

“I will say we are disturbed by the harassment of Cardinal Sako ... and troubled by the news that he has left Baghdad,” Miller said on Tuesday.

Citing attacks on him by a Christian militia leader close to the Iranian-backed forces, named Rayan Kildani, Sako has recently announced he would leave Baghdad for Kurdistan Region.

The Christian militia leader is the head of a militia group, whose members are mostly drawn from Shiite fighters loyal to Iran, and has been sanctioned by the US Treasury since 2019 over human rights violations.