As NATO meets in Wales to discuss a response to religiously motivated conflict in the Middle East, former Israeli President Shimon Peres has suggested that the Pope set up an alternative to the United Nations to combat religious conflict around the world.

Visiting the Vatician yesterday, Peres asked the Pope to consider a 'United Nations of Religions', as he believes the UN is unable to combat many of the world's conflicts.

"In the past, most wars were motivated by the idea of nationhood. Today, however, wars are incited above all using religion as an excuse," Peres said in an interview with the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana before his papal meeting.

Praising the Pope, he said the UN and its peacekeepers "do not have the force or the effectiveness of any one of the Pope's homilies, which can draw half a million people just in St Peter's Square alone."

Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, confirmed that Peres had told the Pope about his idea, and said the Pope had listened with interest but had not committed himself to the proposal.

Francis reminded Peres that the Vatican already has the Vatican has the Pontifical Councils for Interreligious Dialogue and for Justice and Peace.

Peres, who ended his second term in July this year, was himself awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994 alongside then Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin.