An Islamic leader defended the Palestinian struggle...

An Islamic leader defended the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and accused the West of seeing terrorism as something practised only by Arabs and Muslims.
"The Western concept of terrorism reveals an effort to confine it to the product of the other, and by the other we mean specifically Arabs and Muslims," said Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Foreign Minister of Qatar which holds the presidency of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). He was speaking at a forum in Istanbul at which European and Islamic leaders called for joint efforts to promote West Asia peace but showed serious differences in their approach.
The E.U. foreign policy chief, Javier Solana said "We are determined to end the all too long conflict in the Middle East," and called for the OIC and the EU to work together on a solution.
Solana did not shy away from criticism of some practices in Muslim countries, referring to the importance of women's rights and reiterating the EU's opposition to the death penalty. But he said these were not necessarily issues that divided the Islamic and Christian worlds and noted that EU opposition to capital punishment was just as strong with regard to the United States as to Islamic countries.
Turkey organised the forum in Istanbul, a city spanning Europe and Asia, in response to the attacks on the United States on September 11 in which some 3,000 people were killed.