BEIRUT: Muslim, Christian and Druze religious leaders emphasized the need to maintain the Christian presence in the Middle East during a summit held in Beirut Tuesday.
The importance of strengthening Muslim-Christian coexistence and emphasizing Christian existence in the Middle East were the main points of a statement released at the end of the three-hour meeting at the headquarters of Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon’s highest Sunni Muslim religious authority.
“The conferees stressed [the need to] strengthen national coexistence and Christian-Muslim interaction based on their Arab affiliation,” said the closing statement read out by the secretary-general of the Christian-Muslim committee for dialogue Mohammad al-Sammak.
The participants also emphasized that “Christian presence in the Levant is historical and their role is essential and necessary in their homelands.”
The religious leaders also rejected Palestinian naturalization in Lebanon and upheld the Palestinian right of return.
At the opening of the summit in Beirut, Lebanon’s Grand Mufti sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani said Christians and Muslims in Lebanon and the region have nothing to fear from each other.
“We in Lebanon today, Muslims and Christians together, pledge to safeguard each other,” Qabbani said in his opening speech. He urged people of different religious groups to avoid conflict and “overwhelm their nation with unity.”
Qabbani said there is no reason “for anyone to fear the other in Lebanon or the Arab region.”
Tuesday’s summit continues a May 16 meeting hosted by the Maronite Church in Bkirki aimed at easing sectarian and religious tension among rival Lebanese parties.
The meeting was attended by the heads of the various religious sects recognized in Lebanon.
Among the figures were Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai, Vice President of the Higher Shiite Council Sheikh Abdel Amir Qabalan and Sheikh Naim Hasan, the Druze spiritual leader. Also present were members of the Islamic-Christian National Dialogue Committee.
At the May meeting, Rai said that the Bkirki summit proved that Lebanon was a civil state able to separate politics from religion.