STOCKHOLM, Sept 11 (AFP) - The US-led "war on terror" will fail unless its rhetoric is complemented by attempts to clear up "cultural misunderstandings", participants in a Stockholm conference on terrorism warned Saturday.
"What has been a `war on terrorism` is counterproductive," and has created resentment against the US government in many places in the world, Assia Alaoui Bensalah, co-Chair of the European Commission`s High-Level Advisory Group on Dialogue between Peoples and Cultures told the conference, organized three years after the September 11 attacks in the United States.
"Addressing the cultural misunderstandings is the base ... Otherwise the war against terrorism will not succeed," she said, calling for a recognition of "root factors, aggravating factors and opportunism".
It was wrong to associate "all the Islamic world with a few extremist violent people", the Moroccan political scientist said, adding that there was a "long list of grievances across the world, not only in the Islamic world".
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja told the conference that European governments tried to avoid the "war on terrorism" label, "because it elevates the status of your opponent".
"Terrorism is a criminal act, and these people should be treated as criminals and brought to justice," he said.
Tuomioja said any policy of "eliminating terrorists" rather than bringing them to justice was actually helping extremist organizations to find new recruits, "so we are losing".
Mary Robinson, former Irish president and ex-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said a resolution of the long-standing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would be a major factor for more peace in the world, particularly in the Arab world, by making it more difficult to justify extremism.
"Israel is a core issue and it is very depressing that there is no political momentum," Robinson said, adding a resolution of the conflict was not a "priority in Washington".
The conference, on terrorism and conflict prevention, was called in honour of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh, who died on September 11, 2003, a day after being stabbed in a Stockholm department store.