Muslims must fight the "scourge" of terrorism: Iraqi and Afghan Presidents
At a conference on Islam and pluralism under way in Vienna, Iraq's Talabani calls on Muslims not to give into terrorists' fundamentalism; Afghanistan's Karzai draws attention to increasing poverty and violence as challenges to pluralism in the Islamic world.
Vienna (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says the Islamic world must fight terrorism, which seeks "untold horror" by inflaming Sunni and Shiite Muslims against each other and is against Muslim values. He calls terrorism "a scourge which humanity suffers from" and not only in Iraq. Mr Talabani made the comments in an address to a conference on Islam and pluralism in Vienna.
Mr Talabani says "those criminals must have no peace". Muslims must "combat the sectarianism, the sectarianism which is the aim of the terrorist so there will be eternal enmity between the Shiites and the Sunnis and so that there should be untold horror visited, contrary to all Muslim values". He has called on UN secretary-general Kofi Annan for "continuing dialogue among the great religions" to fight extremism.
Mr Talabani said: "The Islamic religion is facing a disfigurement in essence to its reality as a religion of love, compassion and peace by a small group of radicalists who have lost the way." "Thousands of Muslims are being killed. Untold misery has been visited upon millions," he said. "All this is against the Koran."
He says the new Iraqi constitution calls for a "pluralistic democracy" with "respect for all regions and gives everybody the right to practice as they wish".
Afghan President Hamid Kharzai, who like Mr Talabani came to power after a US-led invasion of his country toppled an anti-Western regime, has also addressed the conference. He says "parts of the Muslim world today suffer from stagnation, violence and a weakening of state institutions which curtail their ability to address the demands of their populations".
Mr Kharzai says "the real challenges to pluralism are rooted in unprecedented levels of population growth, poverty, unemployment, organised crime, environmental degradation and so on".
Today's Afghanistan, liberated from the radical Taliban regime, shows that "differences of faith and culture can hardly be obstacles to building a just and pluralistic society". "Most recently, we held our first parliamentary elections in more than three decades in which nearly 6,000 Afghans - men and women - campaigned as candidates," he said.
Afghanistan, Mr Kharzai says, has "embraced democracy and pluralism as a way to the future".
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07/12/2004
