(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — Visiting the Kurdish capital Irbil, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai called Wednesday on the international community to help Iraq’s minorities, asking the country’s Christians to stick to their roots and not leave the country.
“Those who want to help the Christian people in the region can come help them in their own land by creating jobs and building hospitals and schools,” Rai said in press conference after touring the Kurdish capital. “Not by calling on them to emigrate.”
Rai also said on Wednesday that he is willing to meet with Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah Resistance Movement Sayed Hassan Nasrallah as part of efforts to promote national unity in the Arab country.
There already exists a dialogue committee between Bkerke (the seat of the Maronite church) and Hezbollah, Rahi said in response to Nasrallah’s call for national unity against the terrorist groups in Lebanon, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.
Rahi also highlighted the Lebanese people’s responsibility to demonstrate their unity against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group, which has recently carried out attacks against Lebanon.
“We thank God that the Lebanese Army was able to foil the plots (hatched by) the ISIL in (the Lebanese town of) Arsal, but this does not mean that we have managed to fully control ISIL existence in Lebanon,” said the bishop.
“As far as we know, they are hiding in huge numbers here and there,” Rahi said of the ISIL militants.
He also called on the Lebanese politicians to cooperate and reach a compromise on the election of a new president.