“The Presidency of the Republic of Iraq is disappointed about the accusations leveled against the Iraqi government and the presidency regarding the decision to cancel a presidential decree that is not in line with the country’s constitution,” the Iraqi presidency said in a statement.
“So the presidency will summon the Ambassador of the United States of America in Baghdad on this issue,” it added, referring to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller’s comments about the decision to revoke the presidential decree of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
On Wednesday, Miller said that Washington was “disturbed by the harassment of Cardinal Sako … and troubled by the news that he has left Baghdad” after the patriarch withdrew from his residence in Baghdad, planning to relocate to a monastery in the Kurdistan Region.
Tensions have surged in Iraq between the government and the Christian community after President Abdul Latif Rashid earlier this month cited constitutional grounds to revoke a decade-old special presidential decree formally recognizing Cardinal Sako and granting him powers over Christian endowment affairs.
“We are concerned that the cardinal’s position as a respected leader of the church is under attack from a number of quarters, in particular a militia leader who is sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act,” Miller said, adding that Washington is “in continuous contact” with Baghdad on the matter.
He was referring to Rayan al-Kildani, leader of the nominally Christian Babylon Movement, a party and militia affiliated with the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Members and leaders of Iraq’s marginalized Christian community have deemed the revocation of the decree as an attack on their status and on Sako, a highly respected figure in his community and the head of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and worldwide.
Sako and Kildani have been engaged in a war of words over the past several months, with Sako accusing Kildani of misrepresenting the interests of Iraq’s Christian community despite his party winning four of the five quota seats assigned for Christians in the 2021 Iraqi parliamentary elections, and the latter slamming the cardinal for getting involved in politics.
Kildani’s candidates for the parliament were extensively and openly backed by Shiite political forces affiliated to Iran.
“We have engaged with them [Iraqi government] … and we certainly hope that they reserve that decision and the cardinal will be able to safely return to Baghdad,” Miller said, calling the decision “a blow to religious freedom.”
The Iraqi presidency in a statement last week defended the decision to revoke the presidential decree, saying it had no basis in the constitution since presidential decrees are issued only for those who work in government institutions, ministries, or governmental committees.
The presidency in the Thursday statement added that “the president has always respected Iraqi Christians and defended their rights throughout his career.”
Iraq’s Christian community has been devastated in the past two decades. Following the US-led invasion in 2003, sectarian warfare prompted followers of Iraq’s multiple Christian denominations to flee, and attacks by ISIS in 2014 hit minority communities especially hard.
Fewer than 300,000 Christians remain in Iraq today, a staggering fall from over 1.5 million who used to call Iraq home before the 2003 American invasion.
