Current challenges require enhanced dialogue — Prince Hassan

AMMAN — HRH Prince Hassan, president of the Arab Thought Forum (ATF), on Sunday called for reviving the concept of solidarity and instilling an understanding of citizenship while discussing regional challenges.

Attending a symposium, titled "The Arab-Kurdish Dialogue", organised by ATF, Prince Hassan explained that current obstacles require enhanced dialogue among the region's various religious, sectarian and ethnical components, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The prince also noted that Islam, as presented in "the Amman Message", is a religion that encompasses the whole of human activity, honours mankind and calls for acceptance of others.

Prince Hassan highlighted the importance of human communication based on human dignity, dialogue, moderation and rationalism, calling for expanding Arab relations to include major ethnicities in the region, so as to preserve social and international peace, Petra said. 

For his part, ATF Secretary General Mohammad Abu Hammour said that participants in the event represent an elite group of intellectuals who seek to promote a rational dialogue that is able to ease political differences and contribute to offering practical and sustainable solutions.

Iraqi intellectual Abdul Hussein Shaban, vice president of the Academic University for Nonviolence and Human Rights in Beirut, said that partakers share the same interest in reaching peace based upon good citizenship that can be instilled through freedom, partnership, justice and equality.