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Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday said an attack on Iraq would not contribute in any way to the ongoing global war against terrorism.
Replying to questions at a media conference in Hyderabad, Dr Mahathir Mohamad said an attack on Iraq would only "increase the animosity between Muslims and Americans throughout the world."
The Malaysian prime minister felt that the issue of terrorism was not being handled properly. "There is too much stress on security and defence and not enough attention is being focused on the causes [of terrorism]. You cannot fight terrorism this way because we don't know when they are going to strike, where they are going to strike," he said.
"They [the terrorists] do not belong to any particular country and you do not know where they are and unless you find out why they are doing these things and eliminate the reasons, we are not going to make any progress. My view is that the situation today is worse than what it was after September 11," he added.
Asked about Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's comment that the US was adopting double standards on the issue of cross-border terrorism, he said: "To the people practising double-standards, we just say so. Whether people listen to us or not is a different matter. But we feel that we have to make our comments based on truth."
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