TOM BURKE,
Madam, - Your Editorial of December 6th, referring to Turkey's role in the relations between Europe and the Muslim world, warned of a possible escalation of conflict with Iraq into a "civilisational war".
This was a curious expression to use and I wonder if you are familiar with and accept some of the arguments put forward by Prof Huntingdon of Harvard University in his book The Clash of Civilisations. This has been described as one of the most important books written since the end of the Cold War by people who both agree and disagree with him.
If so, I wonder if you can see any merit in his arguments in the same book about the dangers to stability and social cohesion of an excess of immigration of peoples with cultures divergent to that of the West, and his entreaty to resist the "siren calls of multiculturalism"? - Yours, etc.,
TOM BURKE, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.