ASIA/IRAQ - Chaldean Patriarch Sako: Iraqi Christians cannot live in a ghetto

Friday, 19 April 2013

Baghdad (Agenzia Fides) - Christians and other people of Iraq cannot live in enclaves drawn on the basis of ethnicity and religion. And the "militarization of the Arab Spring" represents "a loss for everyone." This is what the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans Louis Raphael I Sako said on some key issues of the current Middle East during an interview with the broadcaster al-Arabiya that will be broadcast in Iraq today, on Friday evening, April 19. In his conversation with the journalist Hassan Moawad, reported to Fides Agency, S. B. Sako replied to those who continue to ventilate the establishment of a special autonomous area reserved for Iraqi Christians (usually identified with the Nineveh Plain), confirming that neither Christians nor those belonging to other ethnic or religious groups can live in a ghetto. The proposed subdivision of the territory of Iraq on sectarian basis express according to the Patriarch an outdated approach to the problems that plague the Middle East, where the only proper perspective is to affirm the principle of equal citizenship for all, "whether they are Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen ". For the same reason the head of the Chaldean Church sees the possibility of establishing an Islamic state in Iraq out of place: "The world has changed, it is plural and diverse," the Patriarch said about political plans that claim to adapt to all law the details of the individual and collective life by rules drawn from the Sacred Texts.
Regarding the Syrian conflict, Patriarch Sako said that the Assad regime should meet the demands of change: "We support the demands of justice and the rights of people, and as Christians we are involved in the Arab Spring, both in Egypt or Syria" he stressed but we are against the militarization of this spring, " said Louis Raphael I "because this represents a loss for everyone." (GV) (Agenzia Fides 19/04/2013).


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