|TOP|The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has launched a new forum which will work on fostering a greater understanding between Muslims and Christians.

The Christian Muslim Forum, which will meet three times a year, will be headed by the Bishop of Bolton, the Rt. Rev. David Gillet, and Dr Ataullah Siddiqui, director of the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, reports the BBC.

Eight presidents – four Muslim, four Christian – will lead the forum of 12 specialist members covering areas such as education and family issues, and six scholar consultants. Two full-time directors – one Christian, one Muslim- will also be employed by the forum.

Bishop Gillet denied, however, that the forum was a “talking shop”, assuring that it would promote better understanding through “common initiatives”.

|QUOTE|Dr Williams also praised the arrival of the forum, calling it a “great achievement”.

"I'm delighted that the hard work that has been put into this project by so many people has achieved so much," he said.

“Christians and Muslims have learnt a great deal over the past 10 years about working together.

"I very much hope that the Christian Muslim Forum will provide an opportunity for the members and consultants from both communities to explore together their common and different perspectives on issues affecting us all," said the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop Gillet expressed the hope to overcome people’s misunderstandings about each other through the work of the forum.

He said: "This is the first time that we have brought together at a national level the Christian and Muslim communities in this kind of way, with this kind of agenda."

|AD|"So that two communities of faith can discover ways in which possibly they can work together for the good of common society as a whole."

He added that the Church of England, as the host faith, had a responsibility to facilitate better understanding between communities.

Dr Siddiqui, who will take turns with Bishop Gillet to chair the forum, said: "We need to lead by example and to show that there are many areas in which it is possible to work together.”

Dr Siddiqui stressed the importance of seeing past misconceptions, saying that people were living in a mask society where their preconceptions were preventing them from getting to know each other: "We have a common heritage but also we have in a number of inner cities Muslims and Christian communities living side by side.”

"We want to work together not simply for the benefit of two communities but jointly for the wider society," he said, adding that the forum would work at a local level to bring people together to talk to each other.

According to Saddiqui, the forum would both “respect and celebrate our differences”.

“What Christians and Muslims both have is a sense of duty to community, so we are hoping that working together will create a clear understanding between them," he said.

The forum was made possible by a start-up grant from the Home Office as well as funding from other sources.