FOREIGN MINSTER ATTENDS MINISTERIAL TO ADVANCE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On July 24-26, the first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom was held in Washington, D.C, USA. Vice President of the US, Mike Pence and Secretary of State of the US, Mike Pompeo delivered the opening remarks. The Ministerial discussed issues of religious freedom around the world, challenges facing it, ending religious discrimination, promoting respect for religious freedom as well as defining further ways. In his speech at the Ministerial, Foreign Minister D.Tsogtbaatar highlighted timeliness of the event, noting the importance of studying, understanding and promoting religions and their diversity in order to end the conflict and prevent further disputes as most of the conflicts in the world are being caused by religions and diversity of them. He also congratulated the United States for hosting the Ministerial. Furthermore, the Minister informed Mongolians have been respectful of different religions since ancient times, and even today, religious freedom is one of the fundamental values of the democratic Mongolia, which has reached absolute level in recent years. Thereafter, he made a proposal to study and prepare research papers about the good examples of respecting religious freedom and organize thematic or regional conference on religious freedom. The Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom was attended by Foreign Ministers of Kazakhstan, Thailand, Hungary, Montenegro and Serbia among others, representatives of International organizations and international civil society organizations and religious leaders. M.Anudari