CAIRO, Feb 25: A string of meetings in Islamabad on Sunday, featuring leaders of key Muslim nations, were not aimed at forging an alliance against Iran, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

At the meetings, foreign ministers from seven Muslim nations discussed how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bring peace to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Media reports in the Arab world suggested, however, that President General Pervez Musharraf aims to establish a Sunni alliance to confront rising influence of Iran in the region.“This is not designed to isolate any country,” Mr Erdogan told the Qatari-based Al Jazeera television network. “It should not be taken from this (point of view),” he said in the interview recorded in Istanbul. The foreign ministers belonging to Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia laid the groundwork for a summit of Muslim leaders at an unspecified date in Makkah.

The goal of the summit is “a new initiative to address the grave situation in the Middle East, in particular the Palestinian issue, and for harmony in the Islamic world,” the Pakistani foreign minister has said in a statement.

General Musharraf visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and Iran in recent weeks to seek common ground for his initiative.

He did not invite Iran or Syria for the meeting in Islamabad on Sunday.

Mr Erdogan said Iran and Syria would be invited in a later stage.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslan denied the conference was aimed at forming a Sunni alliance.

“It is not for Sunni countries, they are Islamic countries,” she told Al Jazeera, according to its Arabic translation of her comments broadcast on Saturday by the channel on another show.

—AP