United Nations Radio

The high-level meeting of the General Assembly on a culture of peace came to an end on Thursday.

For two days, heads of State, ambassadors and senior officials from nearly 60 countries addressed the General Assembly on what they could do to find religious and cultural solutions to the problems plaguing the earth, including hunger, poverty and climate change. At the press conference closing the gathering, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised King Abdullah bin Abdullaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia for his initiative to bring together the interfaith meeting:

SG 1:"The challenge now is to go beyond the powerful, positive words we have heard these past two days. I pledge my full support to this effort. It may take time to see results, but I am convinced that this meeting was an important step forward."

The declaration adopted by the participants said in part that all States pledged themselves under the Charter of the UN to promote respect for human rights and freedom of belief or expression. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, joined the Secretary-General in closing the meeting. During a question and answer period, the Prince was asked, given the sponsorship of the interfaith dialogue, if Saudi Arabia would allow the same degree of tolerance and freedom of religious expression within its own borders. The Prince responded by saying Saudi Arabia was a not only a center of Islam, but also a country responsible to the Muslim community of the world. He also referred to the Madrid inter-faith conference held earlier this year:

Prince Saud Al-Faisal: "Your question indicates to me is that how can you call for religious tolerance and you don't practice religious tolerance and therefore how can you have inter-faith discussions. But this is against the Madrid spirit or the discussions held in New York. In Madrid, we agreed to leave dogma aside and to leave ideology aside and concentrate on common values."

Prince Saud Al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia at the closing of the UN's high level meeting on inter-faith dialogue.

Gerry Adams, United Nations.

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