New venue for religion meet eyed after Malaysia row

KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 (Reuters) The Anglican church is looking for a new venue for its annual Christian-Muslim dialogue after plans to hold it in mainly Muslim Malaysia this year ran into controversy, a church official said today.

The Building Bridges seminar, set up after the September. 11, 2001 attacks on US cities to foster better understanding between Christians and Muslims, brings together senior scholars from both faiths every year, in either a Christian or Muslim country.

This year's event was to have been held this week in Kuala Lumpur but last month, its main organiser, the Anglican church, said it was suddenly called off because Malaysia's government felt it was ''not opportune to hold the seminar this year''.

''In principle we should like to rearrange as this is an annual seminar which takes place alternate years in a Muslim majority and Christian majority country,'' Guy Wilkinson, inter-faith adviser to the head of the Anglican church, said in an email sent in reply to a Reuters query today.

''The Archbishop will consider possible future dates and locations when he returns next week. Locations outside Malaysia are being considered.'' The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, visited Malaysia this week to consecrate a new Malaysian Bishop, but he was to have also taken part in the Building Bridges seminar. It would have drawn dozens of scholars from around the world.

Opposition parties are painting the controversy as a blow to Malaysia's image as a tolerant, multi-racial nation.

''The cancellation...at the last minute makes a mockery of the government's claims of being a moderate Muslim administration,'' opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim said in a statement today.

'I HAD TO POSTPONE IT', SAYS PM But Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Saturday denied speculation that the government had opposed the meeting because of religious sensitivities in Malaysia, where about 40 percent of people are non-Muslim.

Abdullah last year halted work on the government's own inter-faith initiative after a Muslim backlash, saying at the time that religious tensions had reached a worrying level.

But he told reporters today he had merely asked for the seminar to be delayed to a date when he would be able to attend.

''I had to postpone it. There were some things I had to attend to immediately, so we have to find some suitable dates,'' he said.

MORE REUTERS SZ RK1331