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Suleiman Wants Lebanon to be International Center for Interfaith, Cultural Dialogue

President Michel Suleiman on Wednesday expressed Lebanon's ambition in being an international center for interfaith and cultural dialogue.
He told the U.N. interfaith conference in New York that Lebanon is a place for coexistence and a country functioning as a "laboratory" of interfaith and cultural dialogue.

Lebanon is "rich in its diversity…Lebanon is qualified in having a wider room for interfaith dialogue," he said in his address.

Speaking to hundreds of guests in the General Assembly chamber, Suleiman pointed that dialogue cannot grow where there is occupation, when Palestinian rights are violated and when others seek to settle Palestinians outside their homes.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, who also attended the conference, stressed in his address that "the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be settled militarily, it is better to seek peace, for the sake of our children let us break the bones of this historically stemmed enmity."

Peres saw that comprehensive peace means a return of bilateral negotiations with the Palestinians.

"We are now making progress in our talks with the Palestinians and bridging gaps with the Syrians," he said, adding that the Saudi Arab peace initiative was the shortest route to peace.

Saudi King Abdullah, who pioneered the two-day conference, said it was "high time" the world learned the harsh lesson of history — that differences between followers of different religions and cultures "engendered intolerance, causing devastating wars and considerable bloodshed without any sound logical or ideological justification."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the conference that globalization has increased communal strife, extremist ideologies and the polarization of societies.

"Anti-Semitism remains a scourge," he said. "Islamophobia has emerged as a new term for an old and terrible form of prejudice. And other kinds of racism and discrimination show a dismaying persistence."

"One of the great challenges of our time must now surely be to ensure that our rich cultural diversity makes us more secure — not less," Ban said.

Beirut, 12 Nov 08, 21:38


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