Mosque gets go-ahead in Germany

The mosque, which will hold up to 2,000 people, will be one of the largest in Europe and is to feature minarets 180 feet high, a third as tall as the nearby cathedral.

Building work was due to get underway last autumn despite a vigorous protest movement, which has featured both Jewish intellectuals and the political far-right.

Some reports suggested the city's council only agreed to the project after designers agreed to trim down the size of the mosque's minarets.

But Miriam Berndt, from the architect's cabinet behind the project said that nothing had changed. "The minarets will remain as tall as planned, and this will be one of Germany's biggest mosques," she said. "We will start building work this winter and will be finished in a year or two."

Immigration and integration are highly sensitive topics in Germany, which is home to more than three million Muslims, the vast majority of Turkish origin.

But while other mosque projects, such as the one to build Germany's biggest in Duisburg, just 30 miles north of Cologne, are mostly proceeding smoothly, Cologne has become a focus of sectarian dispute.

Next month, the far-right group Pro-Köln, which has led protests against the mosque in the city, is to host an "anti-Islamisation conference" in Cologne, with far-right politicians from across Europe, including France's Jean-Marie Le Pen, to attend.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators and counter-protestors are expected to turn up. But the chairman of Germany's largest Muslim association said no one had anything to fear from the mosque.

"We are here for all Cologne - not only for Muslims," said Sadi Arslan, from the Turkish-Islamic union. "This mosque will be a symbol of fearless, trusting and peaceful coexistence, a place of communication".