Google – AFP, 25 November 2013
Pope
Francis meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a private
audience
at the Vatican, on November 25, 2013 (POOL/AFP, Claudio Peri)
|
Vatican
City — The Vatican said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis on
Monday discussed the need for talks to resolve the Syria conflict, as
international officials met in Geneva to discuss a date for a peace conference.
The two
leaders talked about the urgent need "to promote concrete initiatives for
a peaceful solution to the conflict, favouring negotiation," the Vatican
said, following a 35-minute audience in the Apostolic Palace.
It said in
a statement that they agreed any solution should involve "the various
ethnic and religious groups, recognising their essential role in society."
The Kremlin
chief and the head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics also discussed
"the urgency of the need to bring an end to the violence and to ensure
necessary humanitarian assistance for the population".
Pope
Francis has been a powerful voice against an armed international intervention
in the Syria conflict and has voiced concern about the plight of Christian
minorities there and in other parts of the Middle East.
United
Nations and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Monday huddled with US and
Russian officials in Geneva in a bid to set a date for a peace conference on
the conflict in Syria, which is widely expected for January.
Vatican
spokesman Federico Lombardi said that Putin had also brought greetings for Pope
Francis from Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill but had not invited the pope to
Moscow -- an elusive diplomatic breakthrough.
Francis has
put particular emphasis on improving relations with the Orthodox world ever
since being elected in March and Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, the
spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox, was present at his inauguration.
This was
Putin's fourth meeting with a pope after audiences with late pope John Paul II
in 2000 and 2003 and in 2007 with now pope emeritus Benedict XVI, who stepped
down earlier this year in a momentous move.
Pope
Francis meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a private
audience
at the Vatican, on November 25, 2013 (POOL/AFP, Claudio Peri)
|
Once
strained ties between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches have improved
greatly in recent years and the head of the Russian church's external relations
department said an historic meeting between the pope and the patriarch was now
"more and more realistic".
Speaking in
an interview with French daily Le Figaro published on Monday, Metropolitan Hilarion
said Russia supported the pope's drive for collegiality in governing the Roman
Catholic Church and his appeals for Christians in the Middle East.
"All
this makes the possibility of a future meeting between the pope and the
patriarch more and more realistic... As for the possible place and date, there
has been no bilateral discussion on this," he said.
Putin later
on Tuesday will have dinner with Berlusconi, who has denied reports that the
Kremlin leader could offer him diplomatic papers that would allow him to flee a
growing number of legal woes.
Putin will
then head to the city of Trieste in northeast Italy on Tuesday for talks with
Letta, where several business deals between the two are due to be signed and a
1.0-billion-euro ($1.4 billion) joint investment fund is to be announced, the
Kremlin said.
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