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Balkan leaders vow to end bitter past through dialogue at UN-backed summit

Balkan leaders vow to end bitter past through dialogue at UN-backed summit

Six leaders of southeast Europe, scene of the worst religious and ethnic fighting in the continent since World War II, have pledged to close the bitter chapter of the past with a new culture of dialogue under a declaration adopted at a United Nations-sponsored conference in Tirana, Albania.

In the Tirana Summit Declaration on Inter-Religious and Inter-Ethnic Dialogue in Southeast Europe, the participants “reaffirm that mutual respect, rooted in open dialogue and nourished by multi-ethnicity, multi-culturality and multi-religiosity is indispensable for the preservation of peace.”

They stress that “religion must not be part of the problem, but part of the solution,” adding that “minorities can constitute bridges of connection, friendship and understanding between peoples and countries.”

The Heads of State or government of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro attended the summit, which was organized on the initiative of the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koïchiro Matsuura, and Albanian President Alfred Moisiu.

“Everywhere, inter-religious and inter-ethnic dialogue represents a significant feature of social cohesion and stability,” Mr. Matsuura said in his opening address on Friday. “In southeast Europe, such dialogue carries particular importance both historically and in current political contexts.”

Over the past decade the region has been the scene of vicious fighting, massacres and ethnic cleansing between Serbs, Croats, Albanians, Christians and Muslims in the states and provinces of the former Yugoslavia.