Rome - Vatican officials and a delegation of Muslim leaders were expected later Wednesday to wrap up two days of talks aimed at organizing a summit on interfaith dialogue later this year. The Muslim delegation which includes representatives from Italy, Britain, Jordan and Turkey was scheduled to give a news conference in Rome at 1500 GMT.
The talks which are being hosted by the Vatican's top official in charge of relations with Islam, Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, are the result of a open letter released in October by some 138 Muslim high-profile leaders in which they called for greater co-operation with Christians on achieving peace.
Speaking ahead of the talks, one of the co-signatories of the letter Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini said the planned summit would focus on "a series of common initiatives between the two religions in defence of life, against the processes of secularization, and for the education of new generations."
Pallavicini the Italian Islamic Religious Community's vice president, was also quoted as saying by the ANSA newsagency that Muslim leaders hoped to create "something similar to what the Vatican represents for the Catholic world," as a vehicle to provide Muslims with a representative force when dealing with Christians.
The October letter by the Muslim leaders under the auspices of an Amman-based non-governmental organization headed by Prince Ghazi, the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, was widely viewed as a breakthrough in Muslim-Christian relations.
The letter was addressed to Pope Benedict XVI but also to the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, the heads of the Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist churches, the Orthodox Church's patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I and other Orthodox patriarchs.
Benedict has indicated that interreligious dialogue is a priority of his pontificate, but relations with Muslims since he was elected pope in 2005 have been rocky.
Benedict hurt the feelings of many Muslims when in a September 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, he appeared to associate Islam with violence. But the pontiff has since worked to heal relations.
The pontiff later said his remarks had been misinterpreted and apologized for the response they provoked, including violence in several countries.
Benedict's subsequent visit to Turkey where he prayed in Istanbul's Blue Mosque and his meeting last year with King Abdullah have since improved his standing with Muslims.
