Vatican City, May 27, 2004 / 22:00 pm
In a press release, the Vatican Press Office higlighted the historic relevance of the Mulsim-Christian Dialogue that started on Thursday and will end on Saturday, May 29 at Doha, the capital city of Qatar.
The origins of the Doha Conference on Muslim-Christian Dialogue, which began yesterday in the capital of Doha, go back to the first visit to Rome, in February 2004, by the new ambassador of Qatar to the Holy See, Mohamed Alkawari, following the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two States on November 18, 2002. At that time he expressed his government’s desire to initiate an Islamic-Christian dialogue together with the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. The council welcomed the proposal and started organizing, along with the Gulf States Center of the University of Qatar, the conference now underway in Doha. The three days of meetings end May 29.
The first day of meetings began with a morning public session of Christian and Muslim keynote speakers, including Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, former secretary of Relations with State. This session was moderated by Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims.
In the afternoon there was a second public encounter on the topic of “Religions and Peace” which was moderated by Maher Abdallah, head of foreign relations of the Al-Jazeera TV channel.