Nechirvan Barzani's Vatican diplomacy: building Erbil's voice in the West
Shafaq News
A decade of papal audiences, carefully chosen gifts depicting coexistence on Kurdish soil, and a sustained presence in one of the world's most symbolically loaded capitals has produced one measurable outcome for Nechirvan Barzani and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq he leads: recognition in Rome, and a sustained effort to keep it that way.
During his meeting with Pope Leo XIV on May 18, Barzani extended a formal invitation for the Pope to visit Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, reaffirmed that Christians and other religious communities are an essential part of the Region's history and future, and presented gifts, including a painting depicting a cross in Bedyal* village and a painting symbolizing coexistence. The meeting followed the pattern of its predecessors with enough precision to suggest the messaging has been standardized. What changes between visits is the regional pressure under which the imagery is produced, and the urgency with which Erbil needs Western attention to remain stable.
Pattern Built on Crisis
The relationship between Erbil and the Vatican was not established through formal diplomacy, but built incrementally, using each regional crisis as an occasion to deepen the connection and each period of relative calm to institutionalize it.
Barzani, then serving as Prime Minister, met Pope Francis at the Vatican on March 2, 2015, at the height of the ISIS crisis, to discuss steps the KRG was taking to ensure a peaceful environment for displaced communities. Hundreds of thousands of Christians and Yazidis from the Nineveh Plains were sheltering in Kurdish territory, and the Peshmerga was the only force standing between ISIS and Erbil. He returned on January 12, 2018, as ISIS's territorial defeat was consolidating, shifting the conversation from emergency to institution-building. In December 2018, Cardinal Pietro Parolin visited Erbil and praised the Region's role in providing for refugees. Prime Minister Masrour Barzani met the Vatican's Council of Justice in February 2020.
The relationship's most significant moment came in March 2021, when Pope Francis made the first-ever papal visit to Iraq, met with Nechirvan and Masrour Barzani in Erbil, then proceeded to Mosul and Qaraqosh, and celebrated Mass for 10,000 people at the Franso Hariri stadium.
The visit gave the Kurdistan Region something no bilateral meeting could replicate: the image of the head of the Catholic Church on Kurdish soil. When Francis died in April 2025, Nechirvan Barzani attended the funeral at St. Peter's Square, maintaining continuity across the transition and ensuring Erbil was present at the moment a new pontificate began.
The Visit That Set the Mold
The most direct predecessor to the current trip was Barzani's April 2023 Vatican visit. He met Cardinal Parolin, where discussions centered on Christian minorities in Iraq, then met Pope Francis at the Apostolic Palace, where the two discussed a possible future papal visit to the Kurdistan Region. Barzani presented a painting illustrating coexistence between the Region's diverse communities, the same visual argument, to the same institution, carried forward three years later to a different pope.
The 2023 visit took place while the Kurdistan Region was navigating a severe budget crisis with Baghdad and a protracted government formation process. Neither was resolved by the trip, as the budget dispute continued, and the government formation stalled. The visit renewed Vatican attention to Iraqi Kurdistan's stability —a real outcome, though a symbolic one, at a moment when Erbil needed something more tangible.
Same Painting, Harder Room
The current visit carries the same institutional content as its predecessors but arrives under considerably more pressure. The US-Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz crisis, Iraq's new government formation under Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, and ongoing regional volatility give the stability and coexistence messaging an urgency it did not carry in 2023.
Erbil, through President Barzani, is presenting to the Vatican in May 2026 the same argument it has been making since 2015: a stable, coexistence-oriented enclave in a region becoming less stable and less tolerant. Whether an argument that has remained consistent across a decade is evidence of strategic clarity or of limited options is a dilemma the visits themselves do not resolve.
The disputes with Baghdad persist, and the budget crisis recurs. Barzani is not unaware of what Rome can and cannot deliver: no papal audience resolves a budget dispute, and no painting of coexistence rewrites a constitutional arrangement. But for a region whose leverage in Baghdad is constrained and whose options in the West are limited, maintaining a steady presence in the Vatican's consciousness may be the most available form of capital. He has spent a decade making sure Erbil never loses it.
* A small village in the Mergasor District in the Erbil Province. It is one of the oldest Christian settlements in the Barzan area.
