NATO chief pledges conciliation with Muslims

Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said today he would pay close attention to religious sensibilities in his new role as NATO chief in comments aimed at allaying Muslim concerns at his appointment.

Turkey had threatened to veto Rasmussen's appointment over his handling of a 2006 crisis triggered by cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper. His comments fell short of the outright apology which Turkish officials had hoped for.

"I respect Islam as one of the world's major religions as well as its religious symbols," Rasmussen said during a panel discussion at a conference in Istanbul.

"I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark and insult or behave disrespectively towards Islam or the Prophet Mohammad. Nothing could be further from my mind," he added.

The NATO row, which threatened the image of unity at the military alliance's 60th anniversary summit, was resolved after U.S. President Barack Obama had given Turkey guarantees that Turkish commanders would be present at the alliance's command and that one of Rasmussen's deputies would be a Turk.

NATO is engaged in the biggest military operation in its history in Afghanistan, and Turkey, the only mainly Muslim member of the alliance, had said Rasmussen's appointment would make the alliance's mission there harder.

Rasmussen had previously defended the publication of the cartoons, which caused protests in the Muslim world, on the grounds of free speech and refused to apologise to Muslim countries.

"During my tenure as the Secretary General of NATO I will pay close attention to the religious and cultural sensibilites of the different communities that populate our increasingly pluralistic and globalised world," Rasmussen said.