ISTANBUL, Nov 13: Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the key to improving relations between Islam and the West, a multinational group of scholars, politicians and religious leaders said in a report presented here to UN chief Kofi Annan on Monday.

“The Israeli-Palestinian issue has become a key symbol of the rift between western and Muslim societies and remains one of the gravest threats to international stability,” said the report, finalised after a two-day meeting here.

“The international community should seek a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a renewed sense of urgency,” it said.

The group of 20 experts -- among them former Iranian president Mohamed Khatami and South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu -- is part of the UN-backed Alliance of Civilisations initiative, launched last year to foster respect and dialogue between Muslim and western societies.

The group is co-sponsored by predominantly Catholic Spain and Turkey.

The report called for an international meeting `as soon as possible’ to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process and urged drafting a White Paper analysing the Israeli-Palestinian landscape “dispassionately and objectively”.

After receiving the report, Annan underlined the global ramifications of the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

“We may wish to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many. But it is not,” the UN leader said at a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed,” he said.

The report also criticised western military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for contributing to a “growing climate of fear and animosity” around the world.

“Narrow, distorted interpretations of Islamic teachings” are to blame for the misperception of some traditions as religious requirements, it added.

Mr Annan, who will step down at the end of next month after two five-year terms as UN chief, said he believed the report would pave the way for an array of international initiatives to promote reconciliation between East and West.

The document proposed measures to promote long-term understanding between cultures, including a critical review of educational material, increased youth exchange programmes and a media campaign against discrimination.—AFP