Bush urges unity against terrorism

Mr Bush is reaching out to regional leaders

President George W Bush has urged Asia-Pacific nations to unite against terrorism, promising that the 11 September attacks on the US will not stop the building of free markets and free trade around the world.

Speaking to business leaders on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific summit in Shanghai, Mr Bush said the US-led war on terrorism was "a fight to save the civilised world, and values common to the West, to Asia, to Islam".

Choose openness, trade and tolerance, and you will find prosperity, liberty and knowledge. Choose isolation, envy and resentment, and you will find poverty, stagnation and ignorance

President Bush

Leaders of 21 countries from the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group (Apec) have opened two days of talks which are expected to be overshadowed by the issue of global terrorism.

The summit is expected to approve a statement condemning the terror attacks on the United States, but without mentioning the military action in Afghanistan, which is opposed by some Apec countries, correspondents say.

Freedom over fear

Mr Bush said every nation must oppose terrorism or become its target.

Expressing gratitude for the support the US has received, he said: "Tomorrow [Sunday] Apec leaders will pledge to work together to deny the terrorists any sanctuary, any funding, any material or moral support."

The BBC's Rob Watson, travelling with the president, says he contrasted the bleak world view of Osama Bin Laden to the dynamism of Apec countries.

"Choose openness, trade and tolerance, and you will find prosperity, liberty and knowledge. Choose isolation, envy and resentment, and you will find poverty, stagnation and ignorance. Our nations have chosen - we have chosen freedom over fear," Mr Bush said.

Mr Bush said Apec would agree what he called "new and useful" tools to enhance trade, and promised that the US would do its part to restore economic momentum.

Assurances

The president is using the Apec summit to reach out to regional leaders to boost support for the coalition against terrorism.

Russian and China want a swift end to the US-led military campaign

On Saturday, he assured Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is one of the most outspoken critics of the attacks on Afghanistan, that the United States was trying to be "as careful as we possibly could" to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

And on Friday, Mr Bush met President Jiang Zemin of China for the first time, and said the US and China had a "common understanding" of the threat posed by international terrorists.

But President Jiang and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, called on Saturday for the US-led campaign in Afghanistan to move rapidly to a political solution.

Russian spokesman Alexei Gromov said the two leaders wanted a government formed in Afghanistan "under the aegis of the United Nations and with ethnic groups which are ready to go back to peace."