Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called Sunday on the Muslim world and the West to stop blaming each other and start a dialogue between their two different cultures.
"If we want the dialogue between the two civilisations to open a new page in the world, we must free it from the negative tendency of mutual recrimination with the aim of reaching positive co-operation," he told parliamentarians in Algiers.
Khatami, who is on a three-day state visit to Algeria at the invitation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, said such a dialogue was "a necessity for everyone's future" and that "dialogue and good neighbourliness were the characteristics of civilisations."
Khatami's speech, in both Farsi and Arabic, was covered live by state television and was warmly applauded.
He told his audience that "the Iranian Islamic revolution sees Algeria as the land of emancipation, pride and dignity."
Relations between the two countries were broken off in 1993 and not resumed until 2000. The thaw set in after Khatami, seen as a reformer, took office in 1997 and Bouteflika, considered a pragmatist, came to power in 1999.
Khatami said he hoped his visit would help "open new horizons making it possible to reach strategic agreements to develop further relations between our two countries."
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