Peace Diplomacy and Interfaith Dialog Highlight Worldwide Iftar

September 28, 2007

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The Manilla Times

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/sept/28/yehey/moro/20070928moro1.html

World leaders are celebrating Ramadan with the Muslim ummah by tendering iftar—the evening meal for breaking the daily fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan. Several are also pursuing interfaith dialog and peace diplomacy as they break bread. The United Nations, through its secretary general Ban Ki-moon is set to host a meeting of the so-called Middle East peace quartet composed of the UN, the European Union represented by the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state to discuss the status of the “roadmap” for achieving peace in the Middle East. After the meeting, Quartet members are to sit down on Sunday night with representatives of the Arab League at an Iftar dinner.

In what was described as a “great gesture” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon attended an Iftar meal gathering at the Grand Mosque of Paris, the first Prime Minister to have participated in an Iftar dinner with the Muslims of France. PM Fillon used the occasion to call for measures that would establish good relations between the French state and Muslims.