Intellect, and not emotion, should be used to tackle terrorism, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Monday

There can also be no compromise on the response to terrorism, he added.

"While terrorism is an evil with which there can be no compromise, we must use our heads, not our hearts in deciding our response," Annan said at a conference -- Fighting Terrorism for Humanity: A Conference on the Roots of Evil -- in New York.

The conference was organised by the Norwegian government in cooperation with the International Peace Academy.

The conference had an impressive list of speakers, including Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was also a featured speaker.

Annan said that the rage one feels at terrorist attacks must not remove one's ability to reason.

"If we are able to defeat terrorism, it is our duty, and indeed our interest to try to understand this deadly phenomenon and carefully examine what works and what does not in fighting it," he said.

Annan said since terrorism thrives on despair, terrorists may gain recruits or supporters where peaceful and legitimate ways of redressing a grievance do not exist. "By this process, power is taken away from people and placed in the hands of small and shadowy groups," he added.

Annan said ideas matter in the fight against terrorism. He said the international community must articulate a 'powerful and compelling global vision that can defeat the vivid vision of terrorist groups'.

But that seems easier said than done.

For the last couple of years, a proposal by India on a Comprehensive Convention of

Terrorism has been in limbo at the UN because of differences of opinion, mainly on the definition of terrorism among member states, including Pakistan, which tries to make a distinction between what it calls 'struggle for freedom' and 'terrorism' in the context of Jammu and Kashmir.

Islamabad has also castigated India for alleged human right violations in Jammu and Kashmir.

But Annan said that he does not see any trade off between human rights and terrorism. "Upholding human rights is not at odds with battling terrorism. On the contrary, the moral vision of human rights, the deep respect for the dignity of each person, is among our most powerful weapons against it," he said.

"To fight terrorism, we must not only fight terrorists. We have to win hearts and minds (of terrorists)," he said. "To do this we should act to re solve political disputes, articulate and work towards a vision of peace and development and promote human rights."