Fed: Downer backs PM's decision to meet with moderate Muslims

AAP General News (Australia)
08-19-2005
Fed: Downer backs PM's decision to meet with moderate Muslims

SYDNEY, Aug 19 AAP - Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has backed the prime minister's
decision to invite only moderate Islamic leaders to a meeting in Canberra.

John Howard will meet with 14 Islamic leaders on Tuesday to discuss how to stop religious
leaders from inciting violence and terrorism.

He excluded some of Australia's more radical Muslim leaders from the national summit,
saying he wanted to marginalise extremism.

Mr Downer today said it was appropriate for the prime minister to meet only with moderate
Islamic leaders.

He said the government did not intend to give extremists a platform to air their views.

"I think that moderate Muslims should sit down with the prime minister and the Australian
government and we should work through the messages of moderation and tolerance," Mr Downer
said.

"I don't think we should be empowering extremists. I don't think we should be giving
a platform to extremists."

Mr Downer said he was a tolerant person, but this did not extend to fundamentalists
intent on taking innocent lives.

"I tell you, you know, there's a limit to even my goodwill, good nature and tolerance," he said.

"And that limit is, you know, people like Nazis and fascists and Islamic extremist,
Islamic fundamentalists who want to destroy our society and who applaud the killing of
innocent civilians."

AAP pj/smb/evt/de

KEYWORD: TERROR AUST DOWNER

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