Turkish prime minister opens meeting bringing together leaders of
different religions
.c The Associated Press
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened a
conference bringing together Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious
leaders in southeastern Turkey with a speech Sunday calling for an
alliance rather than a clash of civilizations.
The six-day conference in Hatay, near Syria, was being attended some
2,000 delegates, including Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I, Turkey’s chief rabbi, the Armenian patriarch of Turkey
and Turkey’s religious affairs minister.
Pope Benedict XVI was invited but did not attend, though the Vatican
sent official representatives.
Erdogan sees Turkey, a secular country that is 99 percent Muslim, as
playing a key role in interfaith dialogue.
He and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of predominantly
Catholic Spain are planning to chair a U.N.-supported project titled
“The Alliance of Civilizations,” to foster further interreligious
dialogue.
Turkey on Oct. 3 begins negotiations to join the European Union, and
would be the only Muslim member of the bloc.
“Our differences are not inevitably pushing us toward a clash; they
must not,” Erdogan said at the opening ceremony Sunday. “To those
wishing for a clash of civilizations we must be able to say this: no
to a clash of civilizations, yes to an alliance of civilizations.”
09/25/05 15:50 EDT