NEW YORK, June 21: A US study group on Wednesday called for a dialogue between major Muslim religious leaders and the West to forge an agreement over how to deal with the threat posed by Osama bin Laden.

Emphasising that Muslims were not terrorists and a vast majority did not condone terrorism, Mr Leonard M. Greene, president of the New York-based Institute for Socioeconomic Studies, in an advertisement on the Op-Ed page in the New York Times said: “Bin Laden must be taken in by Muslim world for justice. “He is an outcast from his own country, Saudi Arabia and is reviled by his fellows Saudis” he asserted in the advertisement whose banner read ‘How to Befriend the Muslim World’.

Mr Greene, whose son was killed when United Airlines flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept 11, 2001, observed: “Muslims believe in the words of the Koran...Whoever slays a soul .. it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, as though he kept alive all men,”

“We should end our war in Iraq and use our army to save lives put at risk by natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes,” Mr Greene said.