PATRIARCH KAREKIN CALLS TO COOPERATE WITH SYRIAN SCHOLAR

SANA – Syrian Arab News Agency, Syria
Sept 8 2006

YERIVAN, (SANA) – Patriarch of the Armenian Church Karekin II
underlined on Thursday importance of the current visit of the Republic
Mufti to Armenia.

"We have to seek cooperation and build ties among religions as well as
realize mutual understanding between representatives of religions,"
Patriarch Karekin said in a joint press conference with Mufti Sheikh
Ahmed Badre Eddin .

For his part, the Mufti underlined "peace is Syria’s strategic option"
saying we are in quest of realizing just and comprehensive peace in
the Middle East.

He emphasized the significance of bringing about a just solution for
the central cause of Palestine.

The Mufti denounced some forces linking of the terror phenomenon
with Islam saying, we must learn that practices perpetrated under
the religion’s name or under a nation’s name represent their doers
and not peoples; asserting that Syria was the first who suffered from
this rejected phenomenon.