German President urges to be tolerant to other cultures

German President Horst Koehler on Tuesday praised the Muslim tradition of including people of all backgrounds in feasts celebrating the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and encouraged all Germans to be similarly tolerant of other cultures.

"Communication across religious borders, and sometimes cultural barriers as well, is not as easy as all sides would like it to be," Koehler said in a statement released two days before the end of Ramadan, the AP reports.

"The most important task remains to improve our everyday relations with one another. They must be shaped by insight, sincerity and mutual tolerance," he said.

As of 2004, about 3 million Muslims lived in Germany, comprising about 3.2 percent of the German population.

T.E.