Berlin - Germany and Italy on Wednesday urged the European Union to step up efforts to safeguard religious freedom and protect religious minorities targeted by recent attacks in predominantly Muslim countries.
"Italy and Germany believe that freedom of faith and the rights of religious minorities are a fundamental part of the international human rights catalogue and of the universal system of values," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and his Italian counterpart, Franco Frattini, said in a statement issued after a meeting in Berlin.
"While respecting the sovereignty of national states, we believe that the European Union should constructively engage the governments of those countries where incidents of interreligious violence have occured in order to ensure that the logic of dialogue and peace prevails over disrespect and all kinds of violence."
The ministers' joint statement came in response to recent attacks against Christian communities in such countries as Egypt and Iraq.
Westerwelle and Frattini urged EU foreign ministers due to meet on January 31 to "put forward concrete ideas on how to make the cooperation between the European Union and third countries more effective when it comes to protecting religious rights and to promote interfaith-dialogue."