Pope Francis is
heading to Georgia and Azerbaijan this weekend, aiming to bring
a message of peace to areas rocked by border tensions.
Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said in an
interview with the Vatican Television Centre that following the
pontiff's visit to Armenia in June, he would be taking a similar
approach to Georgia and Azerbaijan - arriving as a friend, to
meet the people and understand their daily lives.
The pope would encourage people to "make difference a
motive for mutual enrichment, not conflict," Parolin said.
The area of Orthodox Christian Georgia and mainly Shiite
Muslim Azerbaijan is at the meeting point of a range of
different religions and political movements whose differences
are fuelling the civil war in Syria, paralysis in Iraq and the
growth of extremist group ISIS.
Aside from praying for peace in Syria and Iraq, the pope
will also visit the Azerbaijan capital Baku to call for an end
to the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh. The Armenian enclave pushed
for independence in the early 1990s and became the scene of a
war with more than 20,000 victims, with tensions still flaring
up sporadically.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
