Abdullah bin Zayed accompanies US Secretary of State on a tour of Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

ABU DHABI, 24th November 2015 (WAM) - Foreign Minister H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan accompanied US Secretary of State John Kerry on a tour of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. During his tour, Kerry stopped at the Mosque's different sections and was briefed about the story behind construction of this landmark and about the innovative Islamic architecture. He was presented at the end of his tour with a pictorial books published by the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Centre and entitled 'Space of Light'. Sheikh Abdullah said at the end of the tour: "It’s a great honour for myself to have secretary State of United States my friend John Kerry in the UAE and it was wonderful to join him on a tour in the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. And this morning we had a very truthful meeting with His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and we very much rely on the Secretary's friendship and the strong relationship between UAE and United States." Kerry thanked His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, H.H. Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy National Security Advisor and H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan for a very warm welcome here today, "I want to thanks them for the privilege of visiting this remarkable mosque, Sheikh Zayed Mosque, which is one of the greatest mosque in the world and one of the truly most beautiful mosques that I had the Privilege visiting. Its extraordinary Architecture and great tribute to Islam and this country and congregates on remarkable building built in 9 years, started from 1995." He went on to say: "I am very grateful to Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed for his welcome today; and for the time we spent. We had some very serious conversation about the situation throughout the Middle East." Kerry also said: "We respect what The United Arab Emirates has been able to accomplish a significant progress in Yemen, we understand completely and support the reason that Saudi Arabia and the UAE felt imperilled to take acts of self-defence and protect the security of this region. And I know that the UAE made a sacrifices in that effort and we understand those scarifies in the United States and we respect what has been achieved and the values that the UAE is standing up for. We also talked very seriously Today about Libya, and we are committed to taking steps in the next weeks, once to try to address that situation and I thank the UAE for their Commitment to try to make sure that radical religious extremism is pushed back in favour of a broad-based tolerant secular governess which allows the people of Libya to be able to choose future away from the barrel of Gun, but through a peaceful Process." Kerry concluded by saying: "Finally, we honestly talked very seriously about Syria, we are deeply committed to try to achieve a seize-fire in a political process, we want violence to stop and there again we want a secular Syria and with the people of Syria to choose their future. So we agreed today on a number of things we will work on specifically we try to accelerate the defeat of Daesh and bring about the peace and stability that the region wants. So again, profound thank you to my friend and colleague Sheikh Abdullah who works very closely on all these issues and we are very, very grateful for the support of the UAE and its leadership." . – Emirates News Agency, WAM -http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395288389553.html