At UN debate, Spain and Portugal affirm importance of dialogue between cultures

A serious, sustained dialogue between cultures and civilizations that leads to concrete actions is the way forward to tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges, especially the conflict in the Middle East, Europe’s Iberian neighbours Spain and Portugal told the General Assembly today.

In separate addresses on the third day of the annual debate, Portugal’s Prime Minister José Sócrates and Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos each stressed that all sides have a responsibility to replace fear and mistrust with respect for difference.

Mr. Moratinos said the Alliance of Civilizations, an initiative set up by Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year and co-sponsored by Spain and Turkey, is designed to deal with these very challenges.

He added that the row at the start of this year over the publications of Danish cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad and the violence in parts of the Islamic world over the past week following a speech in Germany by Pope Benedict XVI demonstrate the need for the Alliance.

Mr. Sócrates said the ongoing instability and discord in the Middle East highlighted the need for solutions that favour the political and the diplomatic over the military.

But he also said that a dialogue between civilizations, whether over issues in the Middle East or elsewhere, will not succeed unless there is a willingness to not accept “mere declarations, but to take firm and concrete steps towards greater interaction between peoples and cultures.”

Rejecting the idea of a “clash of civilizations,” Andorra’s President of the Government, Albert Pintat, said the true divide was between the forces of extremism – in both the East and the West – and tolerant peoples of the world.

Mr. Pintat said he was disturbed that some people regard the UN as peripheral to tackling global problems “at this moment when the need for civilized discussion between people is greater than ever.”

He described the world body as “the forum in which we should try to understand and correctly interpret the crossroads at which we find ourselves. The UN signifies the world’s moral conscience, the principle of equality, our solidarity, the protection of human rights, the protection of human dignity, as does it mark the path to development.”