Vatican City: Pope Francis, who has expressed alarm over the rise of Daesh militants and the plight of Christians in the Middle East, has summoned his envoys in the region to a rare meeting to discuss a response to the crisis, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
The October 2-4 gathering will include Vatican ambassadors to Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinians as well as representatives to the United Nations and the European Union.
They will hold talks with more than a dozen top Vatican officials, including Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who addressed the United Nations on the Middle East crisis on Monday.
Earlier this month during a visit to predominantly Muslim Albania, Francis issued a strong criticism of Islamist militants, saying no religious group which used violence and oppression could claim to be “the armour of God”.
Daesh has declared a “caliphate” in the territories it controls in Syria and Iraq and has killed or driven out large numbers of Christians, Shiites and others who do not subscribe to its extremist ideology.
Asked about Daesh last month when returning from a trip to South Korea, Francis endorsed action by the international community to stop “unjust aggression”.
Parolin, the Vatican’s top diplomat, told the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday that it was “both licit and urgent to stop aggression through multilateral action and a proportionate use of force”.
