ERBIL, Kurdistan Region-- Iranian authorities have dispatched over 1500 Muslim Shiite clerics to predominately Sunni cities in Iranian Kurdistan to mark one of the most important religious holidays in Shiite calendar, Ashura.
The highest religious authority in Iranian Kurdistan, Hasan Amini, told the media that the arrival of the Shiite clerics to Kurdistan was "unnecessary" and contrary to Sunni customs which do not mark Ashura.
Authorities have announced Tuesday and Wednesday as holidays in Iran as millions of Shiites will remember and mourn the death of Imam Hussein, one of the pivotal figures in Shiite version of Islam.
Government officials have said the decision to mark the holiday will also include Kurdish cities west of the country.
Largely seen as one of the more secular Muslims in the Middle East, the Kurds have embraced both Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam, although the majority of Kurds identify themselves as secular Sunnis.
Iran is seen as the only Muslim country with a strict Shiite approach, although it has a sizeable Sunni population in eastern provinces of Baloochestan and Turkmenistan as in the Kurdish region in the west of the country.
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