KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic world and the West must work together to regain mutual trust, respect, understanding and cooperation that are vitally important for world peace and security, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said hereon Monday.

    In order to move forward, both sides must listen with an open mind and an equally open heart, he said when addressing the Third International Conference on the Muslim World and the West: Bridging the Gap.

    Given the fact that the Muslim world and the West shared a lot in common, there was a need to reframe the discourse on the divide, he said.

    "We must stand together with a firm commitment to establish a culture of tolerance and harmony in order to better promote the well-being of humankind, not withstanding the differences or dissimilarities that exist between us as communities," Malaysian national news agency Bernama quoted Badawi as saying.

    Both sides must recognize that the divide was not one between total strangers but between parties which shared historical, existential and philosophical worldview, Badawi said.

    "If we can accomplish this, we would have taken one important step in closing the gap," he said.

    Badawi stressed that it was important to recognize that the divide between the Muslim world and the West originated in the people's hearts and minds.

    "It is as much a matter of feelings, attitudes and perceptions that each side has of the other, and which altogether inform our decisions and our actions," he said.

    In this context, the Prime Minister pointed out that it was notthe faiths which brought the two sides into conflict with one another.

    More often that not, it was geo-politics and the cynical manipulation of religious creed or secular ideology that triggered these conflicts and which brought about the divide, he said.

    If both sides alter these feelings, attitudes and perceptions that each side has of the other, the gap will disappear, "probably not completely, but certainly to a very significant degree", Badawi said.

    The Prime Minister also said that they must recognize that negative attitudes and perceptions among Westerners and the Muslims which had created and sustained this divide, were brought about by the actions of a few bigoted players on both sides.

    "They have been created and fueled by several defining political events, and abetted by certain socio-economic and religious factors," he said.

    In his keynote address, Badawi also said that he was convinced that the Muslim world and the West could succeed in bridging the gap, adding that in this rapidly changing, inter-connected and borderless but massively armed world, they could not afford to fail.

    On the conference, Badawi said the Malaysian government was committed to continuing with these efforts as it believed they were a meaningful contribution to the process of confidence-building between cultures and civilizations.