‘Muslim states must strive to fix Islam’s public image’

Iran’s President Hassan Rouh-ani on Sunday said that Muslim countries should strive to improve the world’s opinion of Islam. “We must remove Islam’s negative image from today’s cyber and real space,” he said in Tehran at an international conference on “The Islamic World’s Current Crisis”.

Most “violence, terror and massacres, unfortunately, take place in the Islamic world,” he said. “I invite all Islamic countries in this region and beyond — even those who until today have bombed and launched missiles on their neighbours — for all of us to stop this and choose the right path,” he said. He did not give any country names.

Iran, which has a Shia majority, supports Yem-en’s Houthi rebels, while its Sunni-ruled regional rival Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition that has been bombing them in support of the loyalists since March.

Mr Rouhani accused arc-hrival Saudi Arabia of promoting poverty and terrorism by continuing to bomb Yemeni rebels and supporting armed rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad in Syria.

Addressing the conference, Mr Rouhani suggested that destroying Syria will not strengthen those governments in the region which support the anti-Assad rebels. “How many bombs and missiles have you purchased from America this year ” he asked. “If you had distributed the money for those bombs and missiles among poor Muslims, nobody would be going to bed hungry.” “If some groups like Daesh can recruit soldiers, the reason is financial and cultural poverty,” Mr Rouhani said.