ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Celebrating Christmas day with members of the Christian community Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region, Nechirvan Barzani, said the Christians are not treated as a minority but a people with old roots in this country.
Some members of the Muslim community and religious figures also attended Christmas day at the Eastern Assyrian Church in Erbil’s Ainkawa neighborhood.
Commenting on the gathering of Christian and Muslims at the church, Barzani said, “It is this kind of scene that has made us join hands together and treat this country as our own,”
Head of the Assyrian Church of the East Mar Girgis Sliwa wished his community peace and that this year’s Christmas would “be an answer to all the violence in Iraq,”
He praised the religious coexistence in the Kurdistan Region and encouraged the Kurdish government to support more cultural and education programs for the Christian community.
Erbil and other Kurdish cities are home to large Christian communities and some of the oldest Churches in the Middle East.
Thousands of Christians have also sought shelter in the Kurdistan Region since the days of Iraq’s sectarian war and recent invasion of their areas by militants of the extremist Islamic State (ISIS).
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