RIYADH, 7 February 2005 — Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said here yesterday that the Saudi school curriculum has been reviewed and revised according to the needs of Saudi society and its development.

Answering a question at a press conference on the link between terrorism in Saudi Arabia and what is taught in Saudi schools, Prince Saud said: “The Kingdom had long ago started working on reviewing and revising as well as developing its curriculum to meet the demands of Saudi society.

“It was improved to conform to the needs of today’s generation and to upgrade the student’s knowledge and logic based on human causes and motives required of the new generation.

“We tried to eliminate any flaws or what might hinder progress and we tried to ensure that the new curriculum focuses more on understanding, humanity, and tolerance. The media are now addressing and appreciating the positive changes that have already taken place.”

The foreign minister said the general secretariat of the ongoing Counterterrorism International Conference held two sessions yesterday, the second day of the four-day forum.

The discussions, he said, revolved around the phenomenon of terrorism as the most important challenge for people, nations, cultures, and humanity as a whole. Participants in the discussions agreed on the need to deal with terror, its aspects and motives. Delegates also agreed to intensify efforts to combat terror and eradicate it, Prince Saud added.

“The delegates also agreed that any counterterrorism attempt will fall short unless it is part of a collective effort on the part of the international community,” he said.

“They also called for an international strategy to combat terror through a unified and comprehensive system for exchanging information,” he added. “The crown prince’s call for establishing an international center for combating terrorism has been commended and welcomed by various countries.”

Conference spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki acknowledged in an interview with Al-Arabiya television that terrorists were able to gain some financial gains and support from charity and philanthropic donations.

“Unfortunately, the abundance of charity funds were misused due to a lack of administrative procedures to control money transfers among branches of charity organizations around the world,” he said.

“Therefore, the Kingdom has moved to reorganize charity and philanthropic activities. Those who are not licensed were banned from fund-raising and we can see today that there are no more donation boxes,” he added.

Along with organizing and controlling charity activities, the government has been working on curbing other means of financing that might be used for funding terrorism such as money laundering, money from drugs or narcotic trafficking, occasional fundraising at religious events such as coupons distributed during Ramadan, he stressed.

The spokesman cited strategic moves to dry up terrorism financing and mentioned how the Kingdom has now made it mandatory for anyone who wishes to transfer money abroad to produce his ID.

Brig. Al-Turki said Arab and Muslim delegates attending the conference rejected moves to link Islam with global terrorism.

“We strongly oppose the attempts to link Islam with terrorism,” said the heads of Egyptian, Indonesian and Iranian delegations during their presentations.

The head of the German delegation also refuted suggestions that terrorist operations in his country had links with Islam.