Muslim-Christian dialogue to end schism – PM

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Monday that the convening of the 1st conference for Muslim-Christian dialogue in Iraq will help end schism and sensitive attitudes that become active whenever Muslims or Christians are target for violence. “Iraq, which has always been an example of coexistence among Muslims and Christians as well as others, must not have any place for favoring or marginalizing this or that group,” Maliki said in an inaugural speech at the conference on Muslim-Christian dialogue in Baghdad. “Injustice, terrorism and arbitrary acts that entangled all Iraqis have helped them to seek more unity and proved that they were all equal to one another,” the Iraqi premier said in his address, televised live by the semi-official channel al-Iraqiya . The conference was organized by Iraq’s Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), which comprises both Sunni and Shiite clerics. He said this event comes after tough circumstances Iraq has gone through five years ago when the country was hit by terrorism, a culture of violence, extremism and sectarian tendencies. “These are ill values that are alien to Iraq but in the same time they made it incumbent on us to have one stand to confront them; and that was why we, as Iraqis, sought refuge in national reconciliation,” said Maliki. AmR (S) 1