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Alliance may calm cartoon unrest

Monday February 20th 2006, 11:44 am
Filed under: Newspapers

A joint Spanish-Turkish initiative backed by the United Nations is being mentioned as a possible forum for restoring calm between Europe and the Islamic world following the Mohammed cartoon debacle originally triggered by a Danish newspaper. This is the Alliance for Civilization, first mentioned in the context of the cartoon crisis by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week. The idea was further taken up Thursday at a European Union meeting in Vienna in which Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik brought together two senior Danish officials and three leading Muslim representatives to discuss ways of reducing the current wave of anti-European tension. At present, Austria holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. The Alliance’s ‘high level group’ - its 20-member multinational working body - is due to meet in Doha, capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, later this month. Its mandate is to hold four meetings and then recommend a series of specific initiatives by the end of 2006 under the title ‘Agenda for Peace’. The group’s report will cover four main areas - education, academia, media, and the internet. The Vienna meeting also referred to a planned conference of European Imams in Vienna in April, and a seminar on ‘Xenophobia and Racism in the Media’ in May also in the Austrian capital. (UPI,February 20, 2006)

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