18 April 2004	Sunday	27 Safar 1425

KUALA LUMPUR, April 17: Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has written to US President George Bush and key world leaders ahead of a meeting of Muslim countries to discuss violence in Iraq and Palestinian territories.

Malaysia, which chairs the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, has brought forward a meeting of OIC foreign ministers to April 22 from May 4 at the request of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

"I've sent letters to President Bush and to leaders of the Permanent Five of the United Nations on the subject of Iraq," Abdullah told reporters on Saturday after a public function.

"I have also sent letters to President Bush and others that make up the Group of Four responsible for the Palestinian 'road-map' or peace plan," he added.

The Southeast Asian nation became the OIC chair last year, taking leadership of a body that reflects the views of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims but is largely ignored by the West due to its scant means or lack of a framework for action.

In the letter on Iraq, Abdullah expressed concern over the worsening security there and hoped nothing would jeopardise the plan by Iraq's provincial authority to return full sovereignty of the state to its people, the Bernama news agency said.

Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in recent weeks in the bloodiest clashes the country has seen since Saddam Hussein fell a year ago. The US military has also lost more than 90 troops in combat since March 31 - more than the number killed in the three-week war that toppled Saddam.

Abdullah's letter - addressed to Mr Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and presidents Jacques Chirac of France, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China - said it was time the international community gave serious consideration to allowing the UN a central role.

The Malaysian premier urged the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to initiate or support such a move.

In the letter on Palestine sent to Mr Bush, Blair, Putin and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Abdullah stressed Malaysia's wish to see a Palestinian state co-existing peacefully with a Jewish one as envisaged by the Middle East roadmap to peace.

The OIC meeting comes as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters a potentially more dangerous phase with this week's nod from Washington for Israel to keep Palestinian territories it won in war. Abdullah such support would only make Israel further ignore Palestinian concerns and could disrupt the entire peace process.-Reuters