Iraqi politician accuses Iran of stopping Jews from participating in Pope's interfaith ceremony

An Iraqi politician claims that Iranian pressure nixed any participation by Jews in the Pope's interfaith ceremony in Ur on Saturday.

Mithal Al-Alusi, the leader of the Iraqi Ummah Party, says that Iraqi Jews should have attended the Pope's ceremony, and that a list of potential Jewish attendees were given to Iraqi leaders, but Iranian pressure took those Jews off the list of invitees. 

"An Iraqi Jewish rabbi should have been present alongside His Holiness the Pope, along with other members of the rest of the religions as a representation of the historical value of Ur and Iraq," he said.

Alusi said that Jews did attend the Al-Rafidain Dialogue conference in Iraq in 2019.

“If the matter was left to respected Iraqi politicians, they would have performed better, representing the multiplicity of Iraq at the level of the plurality of religions and human rights," Alusi stated. "But it suffers from extortion, threats and terrorism carried out by the Iranian side through militias and through political pressure through the Iraqi parliament. "

"Iraq will not reform as long as there are official and unofficial Iranian threats and terrorism," he said.

Alusi is a Sunni Muslim and supports Iraqi alliances with the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Israel.

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