(CNN) Pope Francis has arrived in the United Arab Emirates, making him the first pontiff to visit an Arab Gulf state.

In a video address from the Vatican on Thursday, Francis said the trip marks "a new page in the history of relations between religions, confirming that we are brothers and sisters, even though we are different." The overwhelming majority of Emiratis are Muslim, but the country hosts a large expatriate population, some 1.2 million of whom are Christian.

The majority of the UAE's Christians are Indians and Filipinos.

The pontiff will spend three days in the UAE's capital, Abu Dhabi, where he will attend an interreligious conference with Jewish and Christian leaders. The trip culminates Tuesday with a papal mass at the Zayed Sports City, expected to be the single largest gathering the country, with about 135,000 attendees.

An hour before leaving on his historic trip, the Pope prayed publicly for the "exhausted, hungry" victims of the war in Yemen.

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