World leaders have appealed for urgent dialogue between Western and Muslim countries as part of a UN initiative seen as an alternative to fighting terrorism with military means.
"Never in our lifetime has there been a more desperate need for constructive and committed dialogue, among individuals, among communities, among cultures, among and between nations," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday as he opened the two-day meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations.
"The threats are terrifying but the responses are at hand," he said.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero presented the alliance idea to the UN General Assembly in September 2004 after the March 11, 2004, Islamic terrorist bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800.
Zapatero's counter
The initiative is seen by many as Zapatero's attempt to counter the military approach to terrorism fostered by the US.
Zapatero's Socialists were elected right after the 2004 attacks. One of his first measures was to bring home Spanish troops sent to Iraq by his conservative predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, a strong ally of US President George W. Bush.
Turkey became a co-sponsor of the project, which was eventually adopted by the UN and now has the backing of more than 80 nations.
Jorge Sampaio -- the UN's High Representative for the Alliance and a former Portuguese president -- told the press that the initiative was promising.
"The alliance is a manifestation of awareness. In the opening phase you can't expect to have everything solved, but you can expect to lay the basis for a second chapter -- how we are going to be successful in pushing forward some of the projects that we have," Sampaio said.
Sampaio conceded that several major players, such as the US, were not present at the Madrid meeting but said he hoped to bring them on board.
"At least they're not against it," he said.
Zapatero said the alliance "aspires to build bridges that can help us to manage the differences existing in the world, particularly those linked to religious or cultural issues."
Attending the event were dozens of government ministers, representatives of international organizations, civil society, the media and philanthropic foundations.
`pointless'
Critics in Spain have called the alliance a pointless venture aimed at boosting Zapatero's image. With Spanish general elections two months off, opinion polls show the Socialists and conservatives in a dead heat.
"Zapatero is trying to leave his mark on the international scene," columnist Manuel Martin Ferrand wrote in the conservative daily ABC.
The alliance has set education, migration, the media and youth as its four areas for special attention.
The two-day meeting features workshops on issues ranging from building cross-cultural understanding of conflict prevention, religion and politics at the community level.
Kjell Magne Bondevik, Director of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, praised the alliance's objectives.
"Dialogue is the best way to deal with confrontation, not military means," he said.
But Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi dismissed the idea of a clash of civilizations.
"The civilization clash is a mistaken theory politicians use to sell their weapons," she said.
She said the West had trumped up the idea of an Islamic enemy to replace communism following the end of the Cold War.
In a bid to show the meeting was not all talk, Queen Noor of Jordan, co-founder of the alliance's media group, announced a US$100 million project to support production and distribution of films to promote cross-cultural understanding.
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