MOSCOW, August 18 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia fears deeper rifts among Muslims, not “Sunni Islamism”, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“We fear that contradictions will grow inside Islam and this may have a bad impact. We watch terrorist acts in Iraq and Afghanistan every day and we can guess what is behind that,” Lavrov told Sky News Arabia television in an interview, the text of which was posted on the Foreign Ministry’s official website on Saturday, August 18.
Russia believes that all Muslims should be helped in implementing the Amman Message, which was approved by King Abdullah II of Jordan who brought together all leading Islamic theologians in 2005 under his chairmanship.
“It says that if you are a Muslim, whether a Sunni, a Shi’ite or someone else, and if you believe in Allah, you must act in such a way as to ensure that your brothers are not your enemies,” the minister recalled, adding, “This applies not only to Islam.”
Moscow “advocates an inter-civilisation dialogue and closely cooperates with Arab and other Muslim countries in advancing moral values of international relations”, Lavrov said.
“Ultimately, all major leading world religions are based on the same moral values. And it is a fact that these values are clearly in short supply in world politics. This is true of Muslim countries, countries where Christianity is the main religion and other countries,” he said.