(AFP) The government agrees with Iran that while terrorists should be hunted down there should be no war and the root causes of terrorism should be addressed, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.

Mahathir was responding to questions from reporters over a telephone call he received Tuesday from Iranian President Mohammad Khatami urging the Muslim world to take a united stand on terrorism.

"There is not much difference in our stand and Iran's stand," he said.

"On the one hand we are all for hunting down the terrorists but we are against war and we think that terrorism can be overcome or defeated by attending to the cause of terrorism."

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted Khatami as telling Mahathir: "We ask for a common and united stand from the Muslim world against terrorism" as well as "a clear and precise definition of terrorism".

"It is necessary to face up to the perpetrators of these attacks but in line with documents and proof and there must be no attacks on innocent people under the pretext of fighting terrorism," Khatami said.

Both countries are members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, whose foreign ministers will meet in the Qatari capital of Doha on October 10 to discuss the crisis sparked by the attacks in the US.

Against terrorism, not Taliban

Asked whether he believed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan should be overthrown for harbouring prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden, Mahathir said: "We are against terrorism, not actually against the Taliban."

"Although the Taliban may be harbouring the terrorists, there are other terrorists who are living elsewhere. The people who actually perpetrated these crimes, obviously they were not in Afghanistan and they don't even appear to be Afghans".

"According to reports, they seem to be Arabs and they seem to be living in the United States. So, technically speaking, do you classify that as the US harbouring terrorists? Certainly not."

Asked if any attacks on Afghanistan could be followed by offensives against other Muslim states, Mahathir said: "I don't think the US is going to do such a thing because that would mean that it is fighting against the whole Muslim world."

"The US has said that this is not a war against Islam, it is a war against terrorists."

Mahathir received a telephone call from US President George W Bush the day before Khatami phoned.

International coalition

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said both leaders "agreed that the unprecedented nature of the terrorist threat requires new types of tactics and new forms of international cooperation".

The US leader has been working to rally an international coalition behind likely US retaliation for the attacks as well as an open-ended campaign against global terrorism and nations that support terrorists.

Mahathir has repeatedly condemned the terror attacks but said last week that "oppression" of Muslims in places such as the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Chechnya must first be eradicated before terrorism can be overcome.