“The Danish government urges all leaders, political and religious, in the countries concerned to call on their populations to remain calm and refrain from violence,” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told a news conference.
“We all have a responsibility to avoid that the situation escalates any further and to contain the violent protests and to return to dialogue,” he said, speaking in English at the news conference broadcast live on television around the world.
Danish FM: Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller has proposed visiting the headquarters of the Organisation of Islamic Conference in Saudi Arabia in a bid to calm Muslim anger over the cartoon issue, a spokesman said.
In a letter to OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Mr Moeller said he wanted to ‘discuss ways to calm the situation’, an OIC spokesman said.
He said Mr Ihsanoglu had welcomed the suggestion and that arrangements for the trip would be made ‘through diplomatic means’.
The Jeddah-based pan-Islamic organisation has slammed the Danish government for failing categorically to condemn the publication of cartoons.
But the OIC deplored the attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday, describing them as detrimental to the image of Islam.
“(Ihsanoglu) expresses his disapproval over these regrettable and deplorable incidents,” it said in a statement.
“Overreactions surpassing the limits of peaceful democratic acts... are dangerous and detrimental to the efforts to defend the legitimate case of the Muslim world and portray the true image of Islam,” Mr Ihsanoglu said.
“Violence and threats are not acceptable under any circumstances,” German head of state Horst Koehler said at a meeting in the eastern city of Dresden with the presidents of Finland, Italy, Latvia, Austria, Portugal and Hungary.
Mr Koehler said that freedom of expression was a crucial element of democratic society but warned it should not be used recklessly.
“Responsibility and respect of others and their religious beliefs are also part of freedom,” he said, in remarks backed by the other presidents at the gathering.
“We must express the fact that we respect others but also that we do not accept violence and destruction,” Mr Koehler said.
He said Europe must now seek dialogue between religions and cultures, against the backdrop of the outrage in the Islamic world over the cartoon issue.
The drawings, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, have sparked a wave of anger in Muslim countries, where flags have been burned, ambassadors recalled, European products boycotted and Scandinavians threatened with violence.
“It is important that we speak with one voice on this issue in the European Union, uphold our common values but also make an effort toward de-escalation,” said President Heinz Fischer of Austria, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said no dialogue would be possible if the Europeans did not demonstrate respect toward Muslims.—AFP