Baghdad will be named the Capital of Culture for the Islamic World 2026 shortly by the Minister of Culture
Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani confirmed today, Thursday, that Baghdad will soon be announced as the Capital of Culture of the Islamic World for 2026. He emphasized the need for everyone to cooperate in making Baghdad a clean city intellectually, mentally, emotionally, and environmentally.
The Prime Minister's representative, Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani, said in a speech during the Baghdad Arab Tourism Capital conference, attended by an Iraqi News Agency (INA) correspondent: "Tourism is not a project of a body or a ministry. Rather, tourism begins with the individual, then the institution, society, and the state. The private sector partners with the public sector, and culture and antiquities intertwine, creating significant attractions."
He added, "These elements open their arms to those coming from every deep valley, because this blessed land contains springs of civilization whose roots history has planted deep within the earth, so that city upon city and civilization upon civilization arose. The deeper we go into the earth, the more we find Iraqi civilizations, the civilizations of Mesopotamia , whose roots are unknown in antiquity.
Some say they are only a few thousand years old, but rather they are deep within this land." He pointed out, "Perhaps some might think that because I am the Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities, because I am an Iraqi, more glorious than Iraqi civilizations, these words are the words of Westerners who have explored, researched, and studied, including the British, Italians, Germans, French, Americans, and Spanish, who wrote and loved this, and who believe that eternity lies in this land because the thought there is authentic, and because the roots of thought there are deep-rooted."
Al-Badrani explained that, 'Since the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani began its program, which focused most of its attention on services, we sought to present the Ministry of Culture with the ancient and authentic culture of Iraq. We removed the dust of the past few years, which hindered cultural activities due to the calamities and illnesses that Iraq experienced. We actually succeeded in getting culture back on its feet strongly.' He pointed out that, 'In the field of tourism, we saw that Baghdad had to recover day after day, so we promoted tourism activities, which had been paralyzed for more than four decades since the Iran-Iraq war and the subsequent siege, followed by the occupation, and the subsequent sectarian strife that followed the occupation, and then the occupation of large parts of Iraq by terrorist organizations.'
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