Istanbul, Turkey - Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened an unusual conference of Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders with a call for interreligious cooperation.
"Our differences are not inevitably pushing us toward a clash; they must not," Erdogan said Sunday. "To those wishing for a clash of civilizations we must be able to say this: no to a clash of civilizations, yes to an alliance of civilizations."
On Oct. 3, Turkey begins negotiations to join the European Union, in which it would be the only Muslim member. Erdogan says Turkey, an officially secular country that is 99 percent Muslim, can play a key role in interfaith dialogue.
The 2,000 delegates visiting southeastern Hatay near the Syrian border included Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Turkey's chief rabbi, the nation's Armenian patriarch and the government's religious affairs minister.
Pope Benedict XVI did not accept an invitation but sent official representatives. An interfaith conference at the Vatican overlapped with the gathering in Turkey.
Erdogan and the prime minister of predominantly Roman Catholic Spain plan to chair a United Nations project, "The Alliance of Civilizations," to foster further interreligious dialogue.