Excerpt:
An envoy from Al-Azhar in Cairo, raised the prospect of restoring ties with the Vatican yesterday but called on Pope Francis to take "a step forward" by declaring that Islam is a peaceful religion.
"The problems that we had were not with the Vatican but with the former pope. Now the doors of Al-Azhar are open," Mahmoud Abdel Gawad, diplomatic envoy to the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, told Italian daily Il Messaggero in Cairo.
"Francis is a new pope. We are expecting a step forward from him. If in one of his addresses he were to declare that Islam is a peaceful religion, that Muslims are not looking for war or violence, that would be progress in itself," he said.