First, I would like to welcome you in Doha, wishing you a pleasant stay and success for your conference on U.S relations with the Islamic World.

      The relations between the United States and the Arab and Islamic Worlds are of paramount importance. We consider them as a vital foundation, which we seek to reinforce in order to realize our common interests and ambitions. We advocate the principle of dialogue aimed at deepening the scope of understanding and establishing the bases of mutual respect, friendship and cooperation between our countries and societies.

      The significance of relations between our Arab and Moslem countries and the West in general, and the United States in particular, is neither new nor accidental to our strategic and political concepts. It represents a real expression of historical facts which nobody can ignore or overlook the realities they involve. Our relations with the United States are not dictated upon us by common interests and objectives only ,but we are also in agreement with it on many basic matters inherent in our beliefs and ambitions. A good deal of the founding principles of the American society , which are in fact pillars of contemporary western civilization, are not isolated from the sublime values and tenets which we cherish in our Arab and Islamic civilization.

      We believe in justice, liberty, equality, respect of human rights, equal opportunities, encourage the spirit of initiative and seek hard to establish popular participation as a basis for the decision-making process and conducting government and administration affairs in our country. Moreover, we are keen on laying the basis of our foreign policy on the principles of international legality, coexistence and mutual respect. If these principles are sometimes not properly applied in some of our societies, this is not due to a deficiency in these principles and beliefs, but rather due to the way they are applied.

      These principles are derived from the teachings of our true Islamic religion, which instructs us to respect other heavenly religions and open up to their followers. We also derive from them our contemporary view of the West, its civilization and communities as a major partner in our endeavour to realize the objectives of development and progress in our country.

      However, this partnership and friendship does not mean detailed conformity in viewpoints nor the loss of identity. Allies and friends could never agree on every thing; what is important is that they need to be candid and deal with each other on the basis of friendship, equality and mutual confidence. We agree with the United States on many issues and bearings and consider the close relations that bind us a strategic priority in our foreign policy.

      From this standpoint, we did not hesitate at all to condemn the September 11 terrorist attacks against the U.S.A., and expressed our deep sympathy with the victims of those attacks and the resulting losses and suffering of the innocent civilians. In view of the dimensions of this event, its style, immensity and the gravity of its consequences we called for the necessity of a deep search for its real causes and motives of its perpetrators. However, at the same time we stressed, and still do stress, the importance of differentiating between terrorism in all its forms and guises and the legitimate right of peoples to defending themselves, liberating their lands as well as their struggle to regain their rights.

      We equally emphasized the importance of not making the mistake of attaching terrorism to a particular religion or a specific culture or civilization or one nationality or people. I am referring here to the misleading attempts that had, unfortunately, spread in some western political, informational and social circles, specially the American, in the wake of last year’s events, which sought to brand Islam with terrorism.

      Islam as a religion and culture and civilization is clear of terrorists and terrorism. As for those who try to practice terrorism under the slogans of Islam, they are not different from the rest of extremists who engage in preaching the calls to fanaticism and isolation in all religions, societies and countries, whether they are oriental or occidental, Muslim or Christian or Jewish or otherwise. Fanaticism is fanaticism and terrorism is terrorism whatever slogans, calls, methods or the affiliation of its perpetrators might be.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

      We call upon the United States to deal with Arab and Muslim issues with a greater measure of evenhandedness, fairness and equity.