Governor of Kirkuk, Iraq, Proclaims December 25 a Public Holiday

Kirkuk, Iraq — The governor of the province of Kirkuk, Kurdish Necmettin Karim, proclaimed December 25 a public holiday, to express the solidarity of institutions and the whole society towards Christians, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. On that day all public institutions of the province, including schools, will observe a day of rest, reads a statement released by the office of the governor and sent to Agenzia Fides. The decision was announced Sunday during the visit to Necmettin by Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, who was accompanied by a delegation that included Archbishop Yousif Thoma Mirkis, Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk.

During their conversation, the Patriarch and the governor had an exchange of ideas and considerations on the troubled political phase experienced by the country, focusing on the problems of security and especially on the emergency of refugees, provoked by the conquest of Mosul and Nineveh Plain on behalf of the jihadists of the Islamic State. Necmettin praised the efforts made by Patriarch Sako and the Chaldean Church in an effort to preserve and strengthen the co-existence between different ethnic and religious components in the country.