/ 25 February 2000

POPE IN EGYPT

EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak welcomed Pope John Paul II to Egypt on Thursday with a call for a joint battle against fanaticism and hatred in order to fulfill the hopes of the new millennium. “We should oppose all forms of discrimination, injustice and double standards if we are to establish a new viable world order,” Mubarak said, reading in English from a text. The pope later gave a speech calling for a just peace in the Middle East and an interreligious dialogue. The pope met later on Thursday with Pope Shenuda III, the leader of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox community, which is the largest of the Christian minority in mainly Muslim Egypt. He is also scheduled to meet with Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the imam of Al-Azhar, the highest authority for the world’s one billion Sunni Muslims.