Unapologetic leaders disagree with portrayal
The government refuses to accept any responsibility for the cartoons.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Denmark's prime minister complained Monday that his nation had been unfairly portrayed as intolerant in the international furor over the prophet Mohammed cartoons, and his foreign minister said a government apology would be pointless.
After meeting with a newly formed network of moderate Muslims, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called for peaceful dialogue to defuse Denmark's biggest international crisis since World War II.
"This meeting just testifies that the Danish government wants a positive dialogue with all groups in the Danish society," he said.
However, critics said the network did not represent Denmark's estimated 200,000 Muslims and warned the prime minister could be heightening tensions by not reaching out to radical groups.
Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told The Associated Press the government had no reason to apologize for the drawings first published in one of Denmark's largest newspapers.
"First, you cannot apologize for something you have not done," Per Stig Moeller said in a telephone interview. "Second, nothing illegal has been done because no one has been found guilty by a court."
Demonstrations
Protests against the cartoons continued, with Pakistani police firing tear gas on thousands of student protesters, Egyptian demonstrators calling for a boycott of European countries and hundreds of Palestinian schoolchildren trampling on a Danish flag.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said the conflict had united moderate and radical Muslims "because this hurts the sentiments of every Muslim."
The Danish government has resisted pressure to accept any responsibility for the cartoons -- one of which depicts the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb -- saying it has no say over the media.
Islam widely holds that representations of Mohammed are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.
Fogh Rasmussen insisted that Denmark had been misrepresented in the Muslim world.
"We have seen Denmark portrayed as a closed and intolerant society," he told reporters in Copenhagen. "The truth is the opposite. Denmark is an open and tolerant society."
Middle East tour
He did not give examples of misinformation, but earlier criticized a group of Danish Islamic leaders who went on a Middle East tour in December.
Leaders of the group, claiming to represent 27 Muslim organizations, said they sought support in countries including Egypt, Syria and Lebanon because they felt their voices were not being heard in Denmark.
The group carried a dossier with purported examples of images offensive to Islam, including photocopies of the 12 Mohammed cartoons and three additional images -- two offensive drawings of the prophet and a copy of an AP photograph that had nothing to do with the controversy.
That photograph, showing a bearded man wearing fake pig ears and a pig nose, was from a pig-squealing contest in France in August and had no connection with Islam.
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