Athens, 5 October 2021

Meeting of delegations of Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy and Muslim World League

“Through our common initiatives we aim to reject religious fundamentalism regardless of where it comes from and to condemn any attempt to instrumentalise religion to serve political purposes”, stressed the Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO), Hellenic Parliament MP, Dr. Maximos Charakopoulos, during the joint meeting of the IAO and the Muslim World League (MWL), which took place in a meeting room of the Hellenic Parliament.

On behalf of the IAO the meeting was also attended by the Chairman of the Culture Committee, MP of the Russian State Duma Ivan Sukharev and the IAO Advisor Dr. Kostas Mygdalis, while the MWL was represented by Mishal al Shalan, Advisor and General Director for International Cooperation and Events, Dr. Ahmed Saad Almofareh, Director of the MWL in Vienna and the Islamic Centre in Austria and Omar Ibrahim Alsaif, Director of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Madrid.

After welcoming the MWL delegation, the IAO Secretary General expressed his satisfaction with the finalising of the text of the MoU to be signed by the two organisations, which will lay the foundation for a consistent relationship of cooperation which, he said, “will underline the message of peace, coexistence, and appeasing of tensions in our turbulent times”. The members of the MWL delegation focused on the need to highlight the common values the three monotheistic religions share and their significance in rejecting intolerance and consolidating world peace.

The two organisations agreed to assume joint initiatives, after the signing of the MoU, to highlight regions of the European Area and the Middle East where historically the peaceful coexistence of Christian and Muslim populations has been recorded. In this context, Mr. Sukharev proposed his hometown of Ufa, Bashkortostan, in the Russian Federation, where the Muslim majority harmoniously coexists with Orthodox Christian populations.  

Prior to the meeting, the MWL delegation was guided around the glorious anniversary exhibition at the Hellenic Parliament for the two hundred years since the beginning of the Greek Revolution: “Beholding Liberty! At the Hellenic Parliament two centuries later”.

 

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