Cardinal Sako rejects normalization with Israel: My statement was misunderstood
Shafaq News – Baghdad
Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako on Saturday clarified that his recent remarks about normalization with Israel were misunderstood, stressing that he never referred to political normalization with “the Zionist entity.”
In a message to Muqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Patriotic Shiite Movement (PSM), Sako acknowledged the sensitivity surrounding such statements, pointing that his goal was to draw international attention to Iraq, and to promote religious and archaeological tourism that could benefit the country.
The controversy followed Sako’s use of the term “normalization” during the Christmas Eve Mass on December 24. The Chaldean Patriarchate later clarified that he meant “normalization with Iraq,” not with any other country, implicitly addressing concerns related to Israel.
The clarification came after Al-Sadr stressed that anyone advocating normalization with Israel should face accountability. Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani also addressed the issue, stating that “the word normalization does not exist in the Iraqi doctrine,” linking the term to what he described as an occupying entity that had violated land and people, in reference to Israel.
In 2022, Iraq’s Council of Representatives passed a law criminalizing normalization with Israel, introduced by Al-Sadr’s bloc and its allies at the time. The legislation imposes penalties including life imprisonment or fixed jail terms and seeks to bar any diplomatic, political, military, economic, cultural, or other relations with Israel.
In November, a criminal court in Dhi Qar province sentenced a man to eight years in prison under that law for urging the Iraqi government to normalize relations with Israel.
