UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday a UN-Islam partnership can help ease conflicts around the world. ( dpa )
"The UN and the OIC stand side-by-side in rejecting forcefully and wholeheartedly any linkages between terrorism and Islam," Ban said in an address to the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Dakar, Senegal. "You have spoken up against those who seek to justify violence in the name of religion."
Ban said he had condemned the Israel-Palestinian conflict because each side bears responsibility for the sufferings, as do the parties in other hotspots in Iraq, Lebanon and other countries like Sudan and Somalia.
Ban cited other instances in the Middle East, where the UN helped to promote solutions to protracted crises.
He said the UN group that promotes understanding and tolerance is the Alliance of Civilizations, which is composed of scholars and politicians from many countries who have been advocating increased UN-OIC collaboration.