2 Archbishop Chrysostomos II and HE Grand Mufti Dr Atalay as well as some key aides the religious track would not have been what it is today. Furthermore, the collaboration with Special Rapporteur Heiner Bielefeldt and staff members at OHCHR was key in improving the climate of inter-religious communication in Cyprus, which has already yielded concrete positive results on the ground. The purpose of the Religious Track has been to build relationship, understanding and trust between the religious leaders and ultimately the members of the respective faith communities, including clergy. So far the religious track has been working with the religious leaders mainly of the two communities with a prospect to focus on youth and women and the grassroots. While the Cyprus conflict is not a religious one, you can see that religion is one of the victims of this protracted conflict of nearly five decades. Religion is not only a victim but it also plays an active and significant role in the political and social life of the island. As the Special Rapporteur rightly observed the political positions taken by the high ranking religious representatives, in particular the head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus and the Turkish Sunni Muslim Mufti has enormous influence on the development of the relationship between the two official ethnic communities. One example is the role the Church of Cyprus played in 2004 when they instructed the Greek Cypriots to vote against the Annan Plan, a UN brokered proposal for peace. Post referendum studies of the Cyprus conflict, undertaken by PRIO (2007), had shown that religious believers on both sides, compared to non-religious people, have more intense feelings about violence in the past, are less positive to opening of borders, have fewer encounters with people from the other side and hence have more resistance to reconciliation. The total absence of any investments to initiate, establish and strengthen interreligious communication until the Swedish initiative in 2009 is a key aspect of why religious believers compared to non-religious ones have not contributed positively to peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. As a very quiet, almost secret peacebuilding process, the religious track was rather unknown until recently. The religious leaders needed the space to develop a relationship away from obstacles that would try to destroy such an effort before it even started. They agreed that they would go public if and when they had something concrete and positive to report and they did that. When religious leaders are trapped in the nationalist agenda of their respect communities, they cannot contribute or help each other. However, when the come