Underlining the need to 'urgently' resolve problems like Kashmir and Palestine, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that these issues involve friction between different religions and faiths.
"It is necessary to urgently resolve conflicts and disputes, especially where these involve friction between different religions and faiths, as in Palestine and Kashmir," he told a United Nations Summit for Interfaith Dialogue and Co-operation for Peace in New York on Tuesday.
Musharraf said specific efforts should be made to bring benefits of development to societies facing problems of inter-faith friction and extremism. "Such support should aim at poverty eradication and generation of socio-economic growth and human development," he was quoted as saying by the Pakistani media.
Stressing for a united stance against terrorism, he urged all nations to ban extremist groups and prevent the distribution of hate literature. "We must prohibit extemist organisations and hate literature; prevent misuse of places of worships for the promotion of extremist views. We need to ensure that educational institutions do not foster extremism and terrorism," he said.
Musharraf said that religious leaders and scholars from all cultures and faiths should be involved in the inter-faith dialogue. "We must differentiate between extremisn and terrorism and also adopt different approaches to handle them. While terrorism should be countered with force, extremism has to be tackled through a long-term strategy," he was quoted as saying.
