French FM visits Iraq’s Najaf, meets Shia leaders

By Ibrahim Saleh</p> <p>BAGHDAD (AA) – French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday visited the Iraqi city of Najaf following an earlier visit to Erbil, the administrative capital of northern Iraq’s Kurdish region.</p> <p>Le Drian is the first French FM to officially visit Najaf, a revered pilgrimage site for Shia Muslims and home to a number of well-known Shia scholars.</p> <p>These include Ali al-Sistani, a prominent Shia cleric who enjoys considerable influence in terms of Iraqi domestic politics. </p> <p>“France is delighted by the spirit of moderation shown by the Shia clerics of Najaf,” Le Drian said at a joint press conference with Mohamed Said al-Hakim, another of the city’s prominent Shia clerics.</p> <p>The French foreign minister also commended an earlier fatwa (religious ruling) issued by al-Sistani that served to legitimize the fight against the Daesh terrorist group, which overran much of Iraq in mid-2014.</p> <p>Le Drian arrived in Iraq earlier Monday. He has already met with several Iraqi political figures, including Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government.</p> <p>Talks reportedly focused on the ongoing fight against Daesh and France’s role in the reconstruction of post-Daesh Iraq.