Iraq patriarch leaves Baghdad as tensions with president soar

Baghdad (AFP) July 15, 2023

A prominent Iraqi Christian leader announced Saturday he would leave Baghdad for the autonomous Kurdistan region, denouncing the president's role in a "disgusting" campaign against him. Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the patriarch of Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Church and architect of Pope Francis' historic visit to the country in 2021, is a key interlocutor between the Iraqi government and its C