Iranian Nuncio Appeals for Negotiation, Not Revenge

US President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, as well as Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, at the Baghdad International Airport Jan. 3.

The airstrike followed an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and U.S. officials claim that Soleimani had planned additional attacks against Americans. The US State Department had designated Soleimani a global terrorist in 2011.

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani pledged revenge for the drone attack that killed Soleimani, and Trump threatened in a tweet Jan. 4 to target Iranian cultural sites if Iran were to strike any Americans, a move which Pentagon officials later rejected. Chants of “Death to America” were heard at Soleimani’s funeral Jan. 6.

“Good politics is at the service of peace, the whole international community must put itself at the service of peace, not only in the region but in the whole world,” Archbishop Boccardi said in an Italian Vatican Radio interview Jan. 3.

“The appeal is to lower tension, call everyone to negotiation,” he said. “We must believe in dialogue.”

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Boccardi said that a peaceful Middle East is the responsibility of the international community. The nuncio said “pacta sunt servanda” (agreements are to be kept) is an important rule for diplomacy, and underlined that the rules of law must be respected by everyone.

“We must ‘arm ourselves’ with other weapons which are those of justice and goodwill,” he said.

“I have to say personally that I am very shocked by hearing the words 'taking revenge,’” Sako told EWTN News Jan. 6.

“We are very lucky to be Christian because our culture and our education and our mentality is a mentality of peace, respect, and life, and not of blood and taking revenge,” the Iraqi cardinal said.

Sako said that he believes that Europe can be a bridge to aid with dialogue between Iran and Iraq, as well as with the United States.

“The international community has a responsibility for what is happening in the region in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Iran now. They should help people to sit together and to dialogue in a civilized way and to look for a political solution … not fighting, and threatening people and so on,” he said.

“And I ask all of our Christians to pray for us and to keep us in their prayers,” he added.

Alan Holdren contributed to this report.

Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.