RIYADH, July 5, 2008 (AFP) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whose country is home to Islam's holiest shrines, will launch an inter-faith conference in Spain later this month, the palace said on Saturday.

The Saudi monarch 'will inaugurate the international dialogue conference which will be held under his auspices in Madrid on July 16-18,' a statement carried by the official SPA news agency said.

The agency said the king had left for Morocco on a private visit ahead of the conference due to be attended by Christians, Jews and Muslims.

In March, King Abdullah proposed talks among the three largest monotheistic religions in a first for the kingdom, which hosts Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina.

Last month the Mecca-based Muslim World League said the Madrid meeting would bring together representatives from the 'followers of God's messages and other cultures.'

The term 'other cultures' appeared to refer to non-monotheistic religions which Muslims do not recognise as proper religions, unlike Christians and Jews considered under Islam to be People of the Book.

The conference will 'discuss cooperation between communities from different religions and cultures over common human values,' the league's secretary general Abdullah al-Turki said.

Leading Islamic scholars meeting in the holy city of Mecca in early June also proposed creating a centre to promote relations between religions.

Despite such overtures, Saudi Arabia remains the only Arab Muslim country to ban all non-Islamic religious practices on its soil, even though it has a large community of non-Muslim expatriates.

Last November King Abdullah met Pope Benedict XVI during the first official visit to the Vatican by a monarch from the ultra-conservative Saudi kingdom.