TERRORISM IS the enemy of all religions and would not have emerged were it not for the "absence of the principle of tolerance", King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told world leaders here yesterday.
Speaking at a UN interfaith conference initiated by Riyadh, the monarch called for a united front to deal with the terrorism threat and promote tolerance.
"We state with a unified voice that religions through which almighty God sought to bring happiness to mankind should not be turned into instruments to cause misery," he said. "Terrorism and criminality are the enemies of every religion and every civilisation. They would not have emerged except for the absence of the principle of tolerance."
The two-day forum has drawn criticism from human-rights groups, who say Saudi Arabia forfeits the moral authority to lead such a meeting through its oppression of religious minorities.
The kingdom does not permit citizens or expatriates to practice publicly any religion other than Islam, and is listed by the US state department as a country of "particular concern" because of its severe restrictions on religious freedom.
US president George W Bush, British prime minister Gordon Brown, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and leaders and diplomats from some 60 other countries are taking part in the gathering.
Israeli president Shimon Peres seized the rare chance of sharing a forum with King Abdullah to address him directly, praising his words and a Saudi Middle East peace initiative from 2002 which offered pan-Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from Arab lands captured in 1967. Riyadh has no ties with Israel.
"Your majesty . . . I was listening to your message. I wish that your voice will become the prevailing voice of the whole region, of all people. It's right, it's needed, it's promising," Mr Peres said.
At a news conference after the session, the Israeli president said the speech by King Abdullah marked "the beginning of a new story" in the Middle East.
The two-day conference began on Tuesday with another unusual gesture involving Israel and Saudi Arabia, when King Abdullah and Mr Peres attended a dinner at the UN hosted by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
While they did not sit at the same table, their spokesmen could not recall another time leaders of the two states had been in the same room together.