(U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (R) delivers his speech as (from L) KAICIID Secretary General Faisal Abdulrahmen bin Muaammar, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, World Muslim League President Abdullah Al Turki, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger, Spanish Foreign Minister Manuel Garcia-Margallo y Marfil and Cardinal Jean-Luis Tauran listen during the opening ceremony of the “King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue” (KAICIID) in Vienna November 26, 2012. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger)
The violent crises in Syria, Gaza and Mali show how important it is for different religions to work together to promote understanding rather than sow hatred, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said on Monday.
Addressing the opening of a new Saudi-backed interfaith centre in Vienna, he said the Syrian conflict was “taking on troubling sectarian dimensions” and “unrest (continues) between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Valuable religious monuments had been destroyed in Mali, he said, referring to the destruction of centuries-old Muslim heritage by the radical Islamist Ansar Dine movement.
Religious leaders “can unite people based on tenets and precepts common to all creeds” but at times have also “stoked intolerance, supported extremism and propagated hate.”
