German minister applauds conference with Muslims (1st Lead)

Berlin - Muslim leaders in Germany and government officials hope to resume consultations on sensitive issues such as education after this year's general election, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Thursday. 'We all agreed. This approach has to continue in the years to come,' he said in Berlin of the final meeting in three years of Germany's first consultations with its Muslim minority. The conference series had increased Germans' willingness to accept pluralism. This week, data compiled for the conference revealed for the first time that 5 per cent of Germany's population is Muslim, more than was previously thought, and highlighted Muslim discontent about public schools. Education has been a focus of the meetings, with Muslim parents complaining that public schools fail to prepare their children for decent jobs and mostly do not offer religion classes like those offered to Christians. Chancellor Angela Merkel met at her office with the Muslim community leaders before the three-hour final conference began, and said, 'We need your voices to understand the entire range of Islam in Germany.' She said heated debate at the conference on gaining permits to build mosques had led to proposals to smooth the process and pinpointed the officials to approach. Most of the work since 2006 of the Islam Conference, including information gathering, has been done by committees and officials appointed by Schaeuble. The conference was called for the lifetime of the Merkel government only. Its final session on Thursday ran well over time, with a final news conference delayed. Divisions remain within the Muslim community, with liberal Muslims at the talks quick to affirm their support for the German system, whereas fundamentalists perceived continued hostility towards them from the German state. A newspaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, said one mosque group, the Council of Islam, representing conservative groups, refused to sign a call for full public disclosure of funding sources, calling it 'discriminatory.' 'We reject the declaration in this form because it is infused with suspicion in general towards Muslims,' the Council of Islam chairman, Ali Kizilkaya, told the newspaper. Fundamentalist Islamic groups in Germany have been accused by officials of taking secret funding from abroad.