Terrorism is not issue between the West, Islam -- EU policy chief

BRUSSELS, Jan 19 (KUNA) -- EU High Representative Federica Mogherini met here Monday Nabil Al-Araby, Secretary General of the Arab League and discussed how to increase counter-terrorism cooperation.
Speaking to reporters before the meeting, she underlined that terrorism "is not an issue between the West and Islam, terrorist attacks are targeting most of all Muslims in the world so we need an alliance and a dialogue to face the issue together." "We also need to take full responsibility for what we do and say, I think respect is one of the core values of the EU, drawing the line between freedom and respect has always been a philosophical dilemma, but I think we need to look at that very carefully as we see what is happening in many parts of the world. What we need to do is facing terrorism and respecting Islam for sure," she said.
"The threat is not only the one we face in Paris, but also spreading in other parts of the world starting from Muslim countries. We need to strengthen our way of cooperating together first of all with Arab countries and then internally, interior and foreign affairs ministers," she said.
For his part, Al-Araby told journalists that all countries in the world are suffering from terrorism which has no borders and all countries must cooperate to counter it.
He said that he informed Mogheirni about the Arab League position on counter terrorism measures and later today he will meet EU foreign ministers in Brussels to exchange views with them on this issue.
He noted that the Arab League issued last year in September a resolution to fight terrorism which he described as not only a security and military problem, but also a cultural, media and religious one. (end) nk.ibi