Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) nations gathering in Kuala Lumpur this week will attempt to galvanise international support for the Palestinians, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said in remarks published today.

Malaysia, current chair of the 117-member grouping of mostly developing nations, called the May 13 meeting to discuss the worsening crisis in the Middle East and seek practical means of backing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Syed Hamid said Malaysia wanted the Palestinian issue to gain the momentum of the international anti-apartheid movement, which helped pressure South Africa's white-minority government to abandon its racist policies and hold democratic elections in 1994.

"Malaysia believes the establishment of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state is one of the most important factors in fighting extremism, violence and international terrorism," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said in an interview with the New Straits Times .

"The repeated oppression of Palestinians over the years has led to the phenomenon being accepted as a normal part of international life.

"It seems that when you want to do anything against Israel, even at the United Nations Security Council, you have to get Israel's permission," he said.

Recent emergency meeting

US President George W Bush' statement that the 2005 deadline for a Palestinian state was unachievable was proof of US bias towards Israel, Syed Hamid said.

In remarks published Saturday, Bush cast doubt on the statehood target set out in an 11-month-old peace roadmap drafted by the European Union, Russia and the United Nations as well as the United States.

"I think the timetable of 2005 isn't as realistic as it was two years ago," he said.

Malaysia recently hosted an emergency meeting of the world's Muslim countries to discuss the Middle East situation and Iraq.

Representatives from the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the world's biggest grouping of Muslim states, urged the United States to drop its support for the latest Israeli peace plan and called for a new United Nations mandate on Iraq.

The OIC, of which Malaysia is also currently chairman, decried Bush's endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from some parts of occupied Palestinian territory but remain in others. - AFP