Barroso: Islam is part of Europe
BRUSSELS , May 5: The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel
Barroso, underlined
here Monday that Islam is part and parcel of Europe and he also condemned
the concept of clash
of civilisations.
"Islam today is part of Europe. It is important to understand this.One
should not see Islam as
outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims
among our citizens,"
Barroso told a press conference this afternoon after an informal dialogue
between EU leaders
and around twenty high-level representatives of Christianity, Judaism and
Islam in Europe.
"We can be a European citizen being a Christian, being Jewish or Muslim or
having no religion,"
he noted.
On his part, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dr.Mustafa Ceric, said
Islam is indeed part
of Europe but unfortunately Turkey is not yet part of Europe.
"Following this logic Europe has to prove that Islam is part of Europe by
not delaying the
acceptance of Turkey to the EU," Ceric told the joint press conference.
Many people in Turkey and the Muslim world believe that Turkey will not be
accepted as an EU
member because it is a Muslim country.
Mondays meeting was co-chaired by European Commission President Barroso,
Slovenian Prime
Minister and current President of the European Council, Janez Jansa, and
the President of the
European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering.
This year's meeting focused on two major challenges facing the European
Union: Climate Change
and Reconciliation.
This was the fourth such annual meeting with religious leaders and the
second involving the
Presidents of the three EU institutions. The initiative was launched by
President Barroso in 2005.
Barroso said that the inter-faith dialogue proved that "preachers of clash
of civilisations are
wrong".
Janez Jansa told reporters that "the environment is not only natural but
also a sacred place.
Community and loalty between man, nature and the Creator is a basic
principle of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam alike".
Slovenia, he said, would like to create an Euro-Mediterranean university
which will be a
meeting place for young people coming from the Christian, Muslim and
Jewish world.
A charter will be signed on 9 June in Slovenia, which holds the current EU
Presidency, on
creating this new university.
EP President Pottering said "intercultural dialogue is an important
contribution to the
European Union's relations with its neighbouring countries, in particular
in the Mediterranean
region".
He noted that since the EU has declared 2008 as the European Year of
Intercultural Dialogue,
the high-level meeting is a welcome opportunity to focus o on the topic of
"Reconciliation
through intercultural and inter-faith dialogue".(KUNA)
http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14172&Itemid=88
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