World
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani met Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican on May 18, 2026. Photo: Kurdistan Region Presidency
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani met Pope Leo XIV on Monday in the Vatican, where he extended an invitation for the Pope to visit the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.
“I was honored to meet His Holiness Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex today in the Vatican,” President Barzani said in a post on X. “I reaffirmed that Christians and all religious communities are not only an integral part of the Kurdistan Region’s history and identity, but continue to shape its future.”
His meeting came as part of a two-day trip to the Vatican. Earlier, he met Cardinal Secretary of State of Vatican City Pietro Parolin.
“I reiterated to His Holiness that protecting their rights, dignity, and peaceful presence in their ancestral homeland will always remain our duty,” he said, adding that “I expressed Iraq’s and the Kurdistan Region’s deep appreciation for the Vatican’s moral leadership and its important role in promoting dialogue and coexistence across the world.”
For his part, the pope “expressed his happiness with this meeting and gave deep praise for the culture of forgiveness, coexistence and mutual acceptance in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq,” according to a statement from the Kurdistan Region Presidency. “He also highly valued the role of the Kurdistan Region in sheltering, protecting, and providing a peaceful life for refugees and Christians during difficult times.”
President Barzani also said that he “recalled with gratitude the late Pope Francis’ historic visit to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, and extended an invitation for His Holiness to visit Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.”
The late Pope Francis made a historic visit to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region in March 2021, where he visited several cities across the country and held a mass for 10,000 people in Erbil.
On Friday, President Barzani received Miroslaw Wachowski, the Vatican’s new Apostolic Nuncio to Iraq. Barzani reiterated the Kurdistan Region’s support for his mission and stressed the Region’s commitment to coexistence and religious diversity.
Iraq’s Christian population has sharply declined over the past two decades. Following the US-led invasion in 2003, sectarian violence forced many Christians to flee, while attacks by the Islamic State in 2014 devastated minority communities, particularly in northern Iraq.
According to data obtained by Rudaw English from Bashar Matti Warda, the Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, fewer than 300,000 Christians remain in Iraq today.
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