Aryan Salahuddin, Deputy Minister of Culture and Youth of the Kurdistan Regional Government, accompanied by a delegation from the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts, headed by its Director General, Kaldo Ramzi Oghanna, visited the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako on the morning of Sunday, 20August 2023, at the Patriarchate’s summer residence at the Shim‘un al-Safa Clerical Institute in Ankawa district centre.
During the meeting, Cardinal Sako expressed his appreciation for the pioneering role played by the Kurdistan Regional Government in consolidating the concepts of peaceful coexistence, respect and acceptance of the other who is different, stressing the importance of spreading the values of tolerance, awareness and educating citizens, as well as introducing them to other religions coexisting in the region.
For his part, Salahuddin affirmed the position of the regional government in support of the Patriarch and his honest patriotic stances, both in word and in deed. In addition to praising his patriotic and humanitarian stances, the minister also acknowledged the Patriarch’s constant endeavor to spread the culture of coexistence and his continuous call for the separation of religion from the state, as well as the establishment of civil rights for all citizens alike.
