Zapatero suggests an ‘alliance of civilisations’
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he could see potential in the proposal for an alliance of Muslim and non-Muslim countries to tackle the problem. After talks at 10 Downing Street with Spanish counterpart Jose Zapatero, Mr Blair said it was an idea with merit.
Mr Blair said: "We discussed the proposal that the Spanish prime minister has made for what he calls an alliance of civilisations, which is the idea that we join together, our countries with Muslim countries Turkey is particularly involved in this to form a coalition of civilised people from whatever race or religion to combat the barbarity of terrorism.
Mr Zapatero said the threat of terrorism hung over all civilised countries, regardless of the position they took on the Iraq war. Spain was a member of the coalition which invaded Iraq in 2003, but Mr Zapatero withdrew his country's troops shortly after his election in the wake of last year's Madrid bombing.
He said yesterday: "Beyond the positions that each country has adopted on the military intervention in Iraq, I must say the risk is globalised, as we have just seen in the bombing in Egypt. The terrorist threat is a threat to all. This threat from radical Islamic terrorism affects us all equally.
"They have attacked very different countries and therefore prevention, combat and security affects us all and involves us all."
Mr Zapatero said terror attacks in Muslim countries like Egypt and Turkey indicated the crisis was not a conflict between religions, but between terrorists and the rest of humanity.
"We are not facing a problem that affects one civilisation or another, one religion or another. These are just terrorists, murderers and radicals who are harmful for humanity as a whole," he said.
