Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf called on Monday for the world to urgently address the Palestinian issue, saying it lay at the root of all conflict between the West and the Muslim world.
Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York think tank, Musharraf said ongoing strife in the Middle East and in Pakistan's neighbor Afghanistan was inextricably linked to the fate of the Palestinian people.
"The root of all of them, whether Iraq or Afghanistan or Lebanon lies in Palestine. I think we should fight at solving Palestine first," he said, when asked the best solution to the dire situation in Iraq.
"That will create effects everywhere else, including on the overall terrorism and extremism [front]," he said.
"Things will keep happening until we solve the original case of Palestine, which happens to be the core which is driving people to extremism and terrorism, which are driving people to be suicide bombs, which are even driving people to these subway bombings in London or anywhere in the world," he said.
"We need to get to the core and that is Palestine," he said.
Laying out what he described as a vision of a peaceful and prosperous future for Islamic and Western countries riven by divisions, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, he called for both sides to step up.
"The Muslim world must reject extremism and work towards social and economic reform ... The second part requires that the West and the United States in particular resolve political disputes in the Muslim world justly," he said.
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