“Prince Saud Al-Faisal, foreign minister, arrived in the Austrian capital on Wednesday with a group of senior Saudi officials to ink the articles of association for this global organization called the King Abdullah Center for Interfaith Dialogue,” said Osama Nugali, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The center, established on the initiative of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, has acquired a spacious building in Vienna for its offices,” said Nugali by phone from Vienna.

He pointed out that Prince Saud, his Spanish counterpart Trinidad Jimenez, and their host Michael Spindelegger, Austrian foreign minister, will ceremonially append their signatures to the articles of association at Albertina Palace in Vienna to set up the center.

The Vienna dialogue center is conceived as an international organization, open to all UN members and all religions. The center will be based in the Sturany Palace. The building, accessible easily from different parts of Vienna, has been the property of the Kingdom for a few months now. The choice of establishing the center went to Vienna because the city has been found to be one of the most livable cities in the world. The Austrian capital came second in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest check on around 140 cities in the world.

Nugali said Prince Saud would not visit any other European country during this leg of his tour. He said the Saudi officials were holding talks with senior Austrian officials on a range of bilateral, regional and international issues, including the interfaith dialogue center.

A board of directors for the center has already been announced. Nugali praised the Austrian government’s support to establish the center.

The Foreign Ministry said the idea of the dialogue center was first mooted back in 2005 following an extraordinary Islamic summit in the holy city of Makkah. The initiative received further encouragement following a meeting between King Abdullah and Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 and after an interfaith global meet that took place in Madrid on July 16, 2008.

The opening of the center would lead to the start of a number of interfaith and cultural dialogue programs besides inter-religious discussions to promote world peace and peaceful coexistence among followers of different faiths, a ministry statement said.

The King Abdullah Center for Interfaith Dialogue would cooperate with other centers and institutions that work to foster greater understanding between followers of various religions and cultures, it added.

Saudi Arabia, Spain and Austria decided to open the center in Austria, a country with people of diverse faiths and cultures.

Muslims are the largest religious minority in Austria, accounting for about 5 percent of the total population. Austria has been a close ally of the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has also built a major mosque there. The mosque was built from 1975 to 1979 with funds donated by the late King Faisal after eight Islamic states bought a site back in 1968 and secured official Austrian support.