Saudi king to launch inter-faith forum in Madrid

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, whose country is home to Islam's holiest shrines, will launch an inter-faith conference in Spain later this month, the palace has said in a royal statement on Saturday.
The Saudi monarch "will inaugurate the international dialogue conference which will be held under his auspices in Madrid on July 16-18," a statement carried by the official SPA news agency said.
The agency said the king had left for Morocco on a private visit ahead of the conference due to be attended by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
In March, King Abdullah proposed talks among the three largest monotheistic religions in a first for the kingdom, which hosts Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina.
Last month the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL) said the Madrid meeting would bring together representatives from the "followers of God's messages and other cultures."The conference will "discuss cooperation between communities from different religions and cultures over common human values," the MWL's secretary general Abdullah al-Turki said.
Leading Islamic scholars meeting in the holy city of Mecca in early June also proposed creating a center to promote relations between religions.
Last November King Abdullah met Pope Benedict XVI during the first official visit to the Vatican by a monarch from the ultra-conservative Saudi kingdom.