|PIC1|Archbishop Desmond Tutu has warned that the chaos and controversy over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons is the “symptom of a more serious disease”.

Tutu made the comments at a recent U.N.-sponsored conference held specifically to prevent the increasingly evident rift between Islam and the West from widening even further.

The retired Anglican archbishop from South Africa, reached consensus with 19 other delegates at the meeting that the key ways to overcome the rift was to reach out to young people and provide more education, reports the Associated Press.

The delegates conceded, however, that even with these measures the rift would take years of dialogue and practical steps to heal fully.

Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, warned at the conference earlier in the week that the caricatures are symptomatic of a far wider problem.

|TOP|“What has happened and the aftermath has been seen as a symptom of a more serious disease," he said. "Had relationships been different, one, the cartoons might not have happened, or if they had, they probably would have been handled differently."

Turkish minister of state Mehmet Aydin said: “What we face nowadays is not a clash of civilizations but a clash mostly caused by ignorance, arrogance, insensitivity and festering political differences that fuel hostilities.”

The European Union admitted its regret Monday that the cartoons were “considered offensive” by Muslims, but added that freedom of expression “is a fundamental right and an essential element of a democratic discourse.”

Archbishop Tutu highlighted, however, that freedom of expression came with obligations on those who wish to exercise it.

|QUOTE|“Imagine if the subject had been the Holocaust and it had been treated in a way that the Jews had deemed offensive and the reaction of the Danish government and international community had been as it is now," he said.

Archbishop Tutu expressed his regret over the negative stereotyping that Muslims have suffered, highlighting that Northern Ireland’s Protestants and Catholics, the Oklahoma City bombers and even the Nazis had never been labelled as “Christian terrorists”.

“Look at the Ku Klux Klan, who use a cross as their symbol and propagate hatred against others and encourage lynching. And yet we never hear someone say, 'There's an example of how Christianity encourages violence,'" Tutu said.|AD|

Delegates at the conference, the second since the group was created by U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year to promote moderation and dialogue between Islamic and Western nations, proposed expanding the current student-teacher exchange between nations around the world, as well as making greater use of technology and the Internet in particular to access poor communities which would allow young people to gain a broader perspective of the divergent faiths and belief systems across the world.

"These are complex issues. This is not an instant fix," said Arthur Schneier, a New York rabbi who founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation.

"We're not talking about months, we're talking about years," he said. "A generation has already been poisoned by violence. We have to make sure that the next generation will not be raised with this mistrust."