"Christians in Iraq are the seeds of the land of Mesopotamia, (Iraq editor’s note), and I don’t believe on this Earth there is a force capable of uprooting such seeds from the ancestral land", said the ambassador of the Republic of Iraq at the Holy See, the Christian Albert Edward Ismail Yelda. In an interview with SIR (on line today at old.agensir.it), he talks about the persecution of Christians, "followed by the Holy See with special preoccupation", about the effort to democratize the country, and about its future perspectives. The ambassador condemns "all the atrocities perpetrated against the Christians in Iraq, and against other minorities, by radical and extremist groups connected with and helped by the upholders of the old regime. Islam, as religion, is really far from those actions" which "are trying to create chaos to spoil the work of the new government in the struggle against religious radicalism, extremism and terrorism". As for the hypothesis of a Christian enclave in the plane of Ninive, Yelda says that "there is no plan for a separate area for the Christians; this is not what the majority of the Christians in Iraq wants. The Christians are scattered all over Iraq. They have lived side by side with the Scythe and Sunnite Muslims, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmenians, as well as other religious minorities and groups. I hope they will be able to go on living peacefully together, keeping and exercising their constitutional rights". (To be continued)
