A major Islamic conference on terrorism ended today in Malaysia with a warning that the global war on terror will fail if the root causes are allowed to thrive.
Delegates refused to label Palestinian suicide bombers as "terrorists" and rejected "any attempt to associate Islamic states or Palestinian and Lebanese resistance with terrorism".
"The war against terrorism will not succeed if the environment that breeds terrorism, including foreign occupation, injustice and exclusion, is allowed to thrive," the declaration said.
The declaration "reject(s) any attempt to link Islam and Muslims to terrorism as terrorism has no association with any religion, civilisation or nationality."
Malaysian Foreign Minister Mr Syed Hamid Albar in his closing remarks said to eliminate the "scourge", the world community must identify and address the root causes.
The declaration dealt at length with the violence in the Middle East.
It referred to the "legitimacy of resistance to foreign aggression and the struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation for national liberation and self determination".
"We reject any attempt to link terrorism to the struggle of the Palestinian people in the exercise of their inalienable right to establish their independent state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Jerusalem) as its capital," it said.
Analysts said that while the conference was a useful forum to express and garner Muslim opinion on the plight of the Palestinian people, a lack of unity among members was a major setback in resolving the Mideast crisis.