We have built good communication with several parties in India, which will become the next G20 chair. They also assured the meeting will continue next year.
Badung, Bali (ANTARA) - The Nahdlatul Ulama’s (NU’s) central executive board, which initiated the G20 Religion Forum (R20), has assured that the forum will be a part of the G20 annual agenda, including during India's G20 Presidency in 2023.



R20 spokesperson Muhammad Najib Azca said that his side has built communication with the relevant parties in India to discuss the continuation of R20 next year.



"We have built good communication with several parties in India, which will become the next G20 chair. They also assured the meeting will continue next year," he said at a press conference in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Tuesday.


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Azca, who is deputy secretary general of the NU’s central executive board, said that several representatives of religious groups from India will attend the G20 Religion Forum in Bali on November 2–3, 2022.



"Several Indian religious figures are attending the R20 forum and are participating in this event," he said.



R20 is part of a series of G20 events initiated under Indonesia's G20 Presidency. It is a forum of inter-religious figures from various countries. The NU’s central executive board initiated the forum in cooperation with the Muslim World League (MWL).



During a media briefing in Nusa Dua earlier in the day, chief of the NU’s central executive board, K.H. Yahya Cholil Staquf, said that the idea of creating R20 emerged from a NU congress in December 2021


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"The idea is to gather international religious leaders to hold a dialogue in an honest and modest way about two fundamental topics: first, how to respond to the question of different inter-religious groups; and second, how religious figures can serve as a source of solutions to a wide range of global issues," he informed.



He expressed the hope that R20 will not merely serve as a conference, but also as a global movement.



To that end, the NU’s central executive board has teamed up with the Muslim World League as an organization that protects Islamic organizations and Muslims at the global level, he said.



"We believe that through cooperation with the World Muslim League, the vision to turn this movement into a global movement will come true," he added.



R20 is an important forum for global religious leaders to discuss solutions to a wide range of global issues so MWL has deemed it necessary to be a part of the forum, MWL secretary general Syekh Mohammed Al-Issa said during a media briefing with Staquf in Nusa Dua on Tuesday.



"Our common task is to build harmony among different groups. The R20 forum is very important so that we can realize various ideas to create real peace. So far, many dialogues have been held, but they have all ended up at concept level," he noted.



The G20 Religion Forum will be held at Grand Hyatt, Nusa Dua. The forum will bring together 400 delegates, including 160 inter-faith figures from various organizations at the national, regional, and international levels.



President Joko Widodo is scheduled to open the forum.


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Translator: Genta Tenri M, Suharto
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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