terrorism, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia convened an International Counter-Terrorism Conference in February 2005 which was attended by experts and specialists from more than 60 States and international and regional organizations. The "Riyadh Declaration", which was issued by the Conference, affirmed the unanimous international resolve to oppose terrorism and extremism and made practical recommendations to combat terrorism, cut off its sources of funding, and achieve closer multilateral cooperation in this field. The Declaration resulted in the call of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to establish an international center for combating terrorism under the auspices of the United Nations. We hope that this call will find its way to application in the near future. The tremendous developments that have taken place in the transport, communications and information technology sectors have helped to facilitate and expand contact and interaction among all the peoples of the world with their various religions, beliefs, cultures and languages. As a result, there is no part of the human family, in all its rich diversity and fertile pluralism, which is now living in isolation without affecting or being affected by others. Although these developments have generally improved human life, extremist minorities within every religious and cultural community are seeking to exploit these tremendous technological developments to propagate notions of intolerance, exclusion, racism and hatred. Therefore, we all need to work together in an earnest manner under the auspices of the United Nations in order to create an environment conductive to promotion of the values of dialogue, tolerance and moderation and the furtherance of relations of cooperation and peace among cultures, peoples and States. --More
