Seeking cooperation among Muslim nations for creating an "Islamic renaissance", Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz Saturday said these countries should leverage their full potential to tackle poverty and quash their negative image being shaped by actions of "a tiny minority" of extremists. In his keynote address to the first-ever World Islamic Economic Forum, a 'Davos' of the Muslim world, Aziz said the Muslim countries possess tremendous potential. The task before the Muslim nations was to translate this potential into assets, he said and called for cooperation among these countries. "But to ensure Islamic renaissance we will need to do much more and work much harder." "The greatest challenge that we face today arises from the insidious linkage that is made between terrorism and Islam," Aziz told delegates from over 44 countries, most of them from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), while opening the two-day meeting. The Press Trust Of India quoted Aziz as saying that the Islamic world has "remained encumbered by conflicts ... such as Palestine and Kashmir." Several non-Muslim countries have also sent delegates to the meeting with the theme 'Forging New Alliances for Development and Progress', including India, Britain, US, China Switzerland and Thailand.
