European And Muslim Leaders Meet To Defuse Cartoon Anger

Protestors at the Danish Consulate in Skopje, Macedonia on 10 February (epa)

13 February 2006 -- European officials are taking steps to ease tensions over the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana today expressed Europe's respect for Islam during a meeting with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, based Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen today met with a moderate Muslim group to discuss the fallout from the cartoons. After the meeting, he said that Denmark was an open and tolerant country that respects all faiths.

Protests against the cartoons continue. Thousands of Al-Azhar University students protested today in Cairo. Al-Azhar is the oldest and most important seat of Sunni Islamic learning.

Also, hundreds of Palestinian schoolchildren stomped on a Danish flag in the West bank city of Hebron.

Meanwhile, a controversial contest for cartoons of the Holocaust was launched in Iran today. The "Hamshahri" newspaper said it wanted to test whether Western countries would extend freedom of expression to cartoons about the Holocaust.

(compiled from agency reports)