In New York, Prime Minister Rama addressed a short speech at the high-level meeting on “Social Harmony for Sustainable Development: Promoting respect and understanding in a time of intolerance”, in view of the Sustainable Development Summit. This is an initiative of Albania, together with the Holy See and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, to promote tolerance and respect among religions and the fight against extremism.

The meeting was moderated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ditmir Bushati. The focus of discussion was the need for dialogue and interaction among religions and cultures to promote diversity and harmony.

In his speech, Prime Minister Rama evoked Albania’s model that does not offer just a religious coexistence, but as the Holy Father called it, also a religious brotherhood. The Prime Minister noted that in this religious fraternity as a daily reality, Albania, a country where dictatorship experience has taught us clearly that the price to be paid for religion is too high, has a message to convey and an important role to play.

“Pope Francis started his visit in Europe from Albania. Greeted by the joy of thousands of citizens of different religions, he called this coexistence religious fraternity. We do not allow any faith do be defined in terms of opposition to other faiths, and I think this is crucial preemptive measure against extremism.

In a country where the Holy See has more than 40 martyrs, there are people who pray to Allah, where Christina holidays are greeted also by Muslims, and Muslim holidays are greeted by Christians, Jews, atheist.

In our country we have always known on how to build on our similarities, and how to respect our differences, especially in matters of religion. It is possible to transmit this experience beyond our borders in different social, political and cultural realities.”

Response to radicalism and extremism, according to Prime Minister Rama, is respect for the fundamental human values, as well as understanding among religions, dialogue and cooperation.

“This is a moment to stand up by cooperating for societies that respect universal human rights, the foundation of freedom and refuse the corrupted view of any form of belief that can spill out in any city, from Paris to Baga, threating lives, peace and futures.

The measures to be taken are complex and include larger collaboration in terms of actors, from religion ones, to security ones, and harmonize steps in various fields, from economy to education, of course.”

According to the Prime Minister’s approach, religion can play a crucial role in uniting people beyond biases and building large and sound bridges between communities of different faiths. And on one of these bridges, the Prime Minister said, we could engrave the verses of the Albanian poet, Naim Frasheri, who said: “Man is our sanctuary.”