( Reuter )- A summit of leaders of Muslim states will condemn Israel for "war crimes" against Palestinian civilians and reject terrorism as against the teachings of Islam, a draft of a communique to be adopted on Friday said.
Wrapping up a two-day meeting in Senegal, the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) also called in the document on wealthy member states to finance a $10 billion solidarity fund aimed at fighting poverty, especially in Africa.
After several days of difficult negotiations, the OIC leaders were set to approve a new charter to give a more active role to the Islamic body, which critics say has failed to back up its words with action in the past.
The draft Dakar declaration obtained by Reuters called for Iraq's sovereignty and security to be respected.
It also expressed concern over what it called "increasing pressure" on Iran in its nuclear dispute with the West, which it should be resolved peacefully.
At the summit, heads of state and delegates from countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia expressed their opposition to what they called a wave of "Islamophobia" in the West which threatened the world's around 1.5 billion Muslims.
But they also distanced themselves from acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam, one of the biggest preoccupations of the international community since the September 11, 2001 attacks by al Qaeda in the United States.
"The conference asserts that terrorism is completely against the peaceful teachings of Islam that favor tolerance and kindness and the rejection of violence," the draft communique said, adding terrorism "must be denounced without reservation".
"Terrorism has no specific religion nor race, no nationality or geographic area, and any attempt to link it to a religion, especially Islam, will serve only the interest of terrorism itself," it added.
As is customary at an Islamic summit, the leaders had harsh words for Israel and its policy over the Palestinian conflict.
"The conference denounces the current and increasing Israeli military campaign against the Palestinian people and the serious violation of human rights and war crimes including the killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians," the draft said.
It called Israel's "collective punishment of civilians" a violation of international human rights law and said "the occupying forces must be held responsible for these war crimes".
According to the draft communique, the summit denounced economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. government against Syria for supporting anti-U.S. groups in the Middle East.
But this was the only anti-U.S. statement in the document.
The U.S. envoy to the OIC, Sada Cumber, said he saw the Islamic body moving to defuse a potential clash of civilizations stoked by Western fears over Islamic terrorism and Muslims' anger at perceived insults against their faith.
"The Islamic Ummah (community) is moving in a moderate direction and almost on a progressive path, we're all moving in the same path," said Cumber, who was appointed by President George W. Bush last month.
Cumber said the risk from religious bigotry and extremism came not so much from a clash of civilizations, as from "a clash of ignorance on the part of Muslims to learn more about America and us, the Americans, to learn more about Islam".
Opening the meeting on Thursday, host President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal appealed for more aid from wealthy members.
But several leaders of poor African states said they felt oil-producing Arab countries, flush with cash from an oil price boom, were not doing enough to share these windfall profits with their less fortunate Muslim brothers.
Guinea's prime minister, Lansana Kouyate pointed out that a projected $10 billion special anti-poverty fund created by the OIC had only received contributions of around $2 billion so far.
"If it's true that we belong to the same community ... then we should be showing more solidarity to each other," he said.
One success on the sidelines of the summit was a peace agreement between Sudan and Chad, meant to end cross-border rebel attacks in a region that includes Sudan's war-torn Darfur, but Chadian rebels said they would fight on regardless.