Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has sent a message of condolences to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran over the wide scale devastation and deaths caused by a recent series of earthquakes.

“We learned with deep pain and sorrow about the earthquake that hit the Azerbaijan region in the northwestern part of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the calamities caused by it. "We offer our condolences to you, the families of the victims and the Iranian people on behalf of the people and government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the king said in his message.

Crown Prince Salman, Deputy Premier and Minister of Defense, also sent a similar message to the Iranian president.

The quakes, one measuring 6.4 and the other 6.3 on the Richter scale, decimated hundreds of hamlets near the city of Tabriz, killing 306 people and injuring more than 3,000 according to an official toll.

In another development, the king approved recommendations of a world conference conducted in Madinah by the Prince Naif International Prize for Sunnah and Contemporary Islamic Studies under the theme “The takfir (the declaring of others as infidels) phenomenon, its causes, impact and treatment,” in collaboration with the Imam Muhammad Islamic University.

The conference aimed to counter the culture of takfir and highlight the dangers posed by takfir to individuals and society.

The conference also sought to reinforce the principles of intellectual security and preserve pure Islamic identity by adhering to the correct principles of religion and following the path of moderation, in addition to spreading the culture of dialogue as a means to express ones views and achieve peaceful coexistence, the Saudi Press Agency reported.