Source: Baha'i World News Service

http://news.bahai.org/story.cfm?storyid=379

On June 28, 2005 the Baha'i World News Service reported, "The key to interfaith harmony and cooperation is to focus on the essential oneness of all religions, a Baha'i International Community representative told a groundbreaking conference on interfaith cooperation. 'It is this essential unity of religion, across the tremendous diversity of history, culture, tradition, philosophy, and practice, that should now become the operating principle of religious discourse,' said the Community's principal representative to the United Nations, Bani Dugal. Ms. Dugal was among some two dozen speakers at the 'Conference on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace,' which was held on 22 June 2005. The conference was sponsored by a tripartite group that included 16 governments, three UN agencies, and eight religious and civil society organizations. It is the first time such a group has convened a substantive interfaith event at the United Nations -- an institution that rarely holds interfaith gatherings of any type."