Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf held unprecedented talks on Saturday with US Jewish leaders, saying an anticipated resolution to the Palestinian issue would revive the historical ties between Islam and Judaism.

Musharraf, pressing his campaign for moderation in the Muslim world, became the first leader of a Muslim nation with no diplomatic relations with Israel to hold a public dialogue with Jewish leaders, officials of the Council for World Jewry said.

The Pakistani leader was given a standing ovation and big round of applause as he arrived late on Saturday at the meeting of what is probably the most distinguished and influential community in the United States.

"I cannot imagine that a Muslim and that too a Pakistani and more than that a man in uniform would ever get such a warm reception and such an applause from the Jewish community," Musharraf said, as he gave a military salute to the audience, which included Pakistani Americans.

Noting that the Kashmir and Palestinian issues are ripe for resolution, he said, "We ought to put our collective weight behind a push for their final solution.

"I am convinced that peace in Palestine that does justice to both the Israelis and the Palestinians will bring to a close the sad chapter in the history of the Middle East (and) will revive the historical ties between Islam and Judaism," he said.

As the peace process progressed towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, Musharraf said, Pakistan "will take further steps towards normalization and co-operation, looking to full diplomatic relations" with Israel.

Speaking at the groundbreaking dinner, which opened with the sharing of bread and Koranic prayers, Musharraf said his country had "no direct conflict or dispute with Israel" but that Pakistanis had deep sympathy for Palestinian aspirations for a separate state.

"Israel must come to terms with geopolitical realities and allow justice to prevail for the Palestinians," he said, describing a Palestinian settlement as the key to security for Israel and an end to Middle East terrorism.

In conciliatory comments that Pakistani analysts called strikingly candid in the Muslim world, Musharraf recalled the tragedy of the Holocaust and acknowledged compassion shown by Jewish groups in combating anti-Islamic prejudice after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Pakistan has been one of Israel's harshest critics in the Muslim world. But Musharraf said the strife since the creation of Israel in 1948 was an "aberration in the long history of Muslim-Jewish co-operation and coexistence."

Islam, Judaism and Christianity shared prophets and spiritual practices, but were now needlessly "pitted against each other" a situation it would take courage to reverse, he said. His remarks received several standing ovations from the audience of about 350 people.

Musharraf said suggestions that Islam rejected tolerance and promoted terrorism amounted to a "hate campaign" against the faith. But he acknowledged that most people involved in terrorism, and most who suffered from it, were Muslims.

'Unprecedented evening'

Jack Rosen, the chairman of the American Jewish Congress, described the function as "an unprecedented evening." It resulted from two years of secret talks, culminating with a meeting between congress leaders and Musharraf in Islamabad.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke before the congress in January last year but his nation already has diplomatic relations with Israel, congress officials said.

"President Musharraf's decision to be with us tonight is an act of individual courage, leadership and vision," said Rosen, who is also chairman of the Council for World Jewry, which includes the US, French and Russian chapters of the Jewish community.

Sharing the platform with Musharraf was senior US legislator Tom Lantos, a 77-year-old Hungarian Jew who, as a teenager, resisted the Nazis and then narrowly escaped the Holocaust for the United States.

Lantos told Musharraf that at a time "when the civilized world is engaged in a global war against extremist Islamic terrorism, you have emerged as the quintessential Muslim leader of moderation, decency, reason, and acceptance of pluralism."

The Pakistani leader took a "considerable political risk" by addressing a major Jewish organization in New York, he said.

Musharraf has repeatedly spoken out against Islamic extremism. He twice escaped assassination.

Last year, he unveiled his "enlightened moderation" doctrine encouraging Muslims to embrace pluralism, openness and tolerance.

The meeting with the Jewish leaders came three days after the Pakistani leader shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when they ran into each other at the UN summit in New York.

Two weeks earlier, their foreign ministers met in Istanbul in the first official contact between the Jewish state and Islamic republic. Hardline Islamic parties in Pakistan burned US and Israeli flags in protest at the talks.

Israel currently has full diplomatic relations with only three Arab states Mauritania, Egypt and Jordan and a handful of Muslim majority states including Turkey.

Source: China Daily