Sydney, Australia - Prime Minister John Howard on Friday defended his decision to bar radical Muslims from a summit of Australian Islamic leaders in the capital next week, saying the meeting's aim is to promote moderate Islam.
Howard invited 14 Islamic leaders to Canberra following the London terror attacks last month, after some radical Muslims made comments seen as supporting terror.
Howard said he shut out extremist or fundamentalist leaders from next Tuesday's meeting because "my purpose is to marginalize extremism, (and) that is the best way."
"The best way of defeating extremism is to point out to those people who might be influenced by it, that they are in fact, leading them up the wrong path," he said on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
After the London public transport bombings of July 7, Australian Islamic cleric Abu Bakr described Osama bin Laden as a "great man."
The cleric said he would be violating his faith by advising followers not to attend terrorist training camps.
But other Islamic leaders joined Howard's calls for moderation by publishing an open letter urging Muslim leaders to preach against terrorism and promote peace.
About 350,000 Muslims live in Australia, mostly in run-down neighborhoods in the country's big cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
Although there has never been a major terror attack on Australian soil, there are growing fears that the country's strong support for the U.S.-led war on terror - and its dispatch of troops to Iraq - are turning it into a target for Islamic extremists.
Howard said he did not want radicals at the coming meeting because it would give them a high-profile platform to air their beliefs.
"To invite people who represent an extreme point of view is to give them disproportionate and unmeritorious recognition, which would anger people who are trying to do the right thing," he said.
"And the overwhelming majority of Australians who are Muslims are wonderful Australians, who are as concerned as you and I are about terrorism and want to work with the government," he said.
He said a key objective of the summit was to ensure a moderate Muslim message was being preached to youngsters.
"I doubt very much that anybody can dissuade an individual who already has a well-formed extremist view," Howard said.
"But I do think people can prevent impressionable younger people, in particular, from coming under the sway of extremism. That's what this exercise is all about."