The head of the Vatican’s council for interreligious dialogue has warned of a “clash of ignorance” between Muslims and Christians in a rare interview with Arabic television network Al Jazeera.

“We have managed to avoid a clash of civilisations, we must avoid a clash of ignorance,” Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran said in the interview.

In Europe, “there is fear of Islam, but it is due to ignorance,” said Cardinal Tauran, who described the problem as “religious illiteracy”.

“If you speak to right-wing groups, you discover that they have never opened a Koran and never met a Muslim. There needs to be a big effort to educate them,” he said.

In terms of the Middle East, there are school textbooks in which “Christians are never called Christians, but unbelievers, and this is not true,” he added. “Christians have always lived in the Middle East,” but they have become “opposition targets, they feel like second-class citizens in countries where Muslims are the majority,” Cardinal Tauran said.

It is the first time that a Vatican representative has chosen to address the Muslim world through a television interview.

Asked about the Arab Spring uprisings, Cardinal Tauran – who was minister of foreign affairs under Pope John Paul II – said that “the ambitions are good and came from young people in search of dignity, freedom and work, values which are shared by Christians and Muslims”.

“But let’s hope (the Spring) goes towards summer and not winter,” he said.

• The interview will be aired four times a day starting today, during the Talk to Al-Jazeera show.