COPENHAGEN, April 4, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Spain urged the West on Monday, April 4, to engage in a more constructive dialogue with the Muslim world to promote mutual understanding, with Denmark planning to up its Mideast spending to repair damages caused by the publication of cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him).

"What the crisis has shown is that you have to pay attention to this part of the world," Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said after talks with Danish counterpart Per Stig Moeller, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"There are a lot of misunderstandings between the West and Islam and the Muslim countries. It doesn't means that we have bad relations."

Moratinos stressed that the West must get more engaged with the Arab and Muslim countries.

"It is the best way to overcome a future crisis," he averred.

Twelve cartoons, including one showing the Prophet with a bomb-shaped turban, were first published by Denmark's mass-circulation daily Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted by European newspapers on claims of freedom of expression.

The drawings, considered blasphemous under Islam, have triggered furor in the Muslim world and strained ties between the West and Muslim countries.

Moratinos admitted that the cartoon crisis was "one of the main challenges the European Union has faced in recent years."

He said the West must stand up for its values, such as freedom of speech, "but we also have other values to defend: tolerance, respect and mutual understanding."

While Muslims insist on a clear-cut apology for the "publication" of the odious cartoons, Jyllands-Posten has only apologized for hurting Muslim feelings but not for commissioning and printing the caricatures.

Danish Premier Fogh Rasmussen has defended the paper's freedom of expression right as entrenched in the Danish constitution.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner have suggested that the EU and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) co-draft a UN resolution on religious tolerance.

The OIC and the Arab League, the Muslim world's main political bodies, are seeking a UN resolution, backed by possible sanctions, to protect religions against blasphemy.

Moratinos stressed that the European Union must take "most seriously" the relationship with Muslim and Arab countries.

"We have to work more and more with them, asking them to be much more committed to our common values and common principles, and at the same time give them the sense that they are part of the same international community."

He pressed for developing more relations with the Muslim world in the economic, political and cultural fields.

Seeking to repair damages caused by the cartoons, Denmark is planning to boost its spending on Middle East relations by up to 20 percent.

"The budget is currently around 100 million Danish crowns ($16.2 million) a year and this will increase by 15 to 20 percent," a Foreign Ministry source told Reuters.

"It's currently on the minister's desk awaiting approval."

Set up in 2003, the Middle East relations program aims to create a dialogue between Danes and people in the Middle East and to promote democracy.

It organizes conferences and twinning schemes and provides funds for non-governmental organizations, among other activities.

Angry protestors in Syria and Lebanon burned down the Danish embassy and consulate respectively during violent demonstrations, condemned by Muslim scholars.

The cartoon crisis has triggered a wide-scale boycott of Danish products across the Muslim world.

Danish dairy giant Arla published on Sunday, March 19, full page ads in papers across the Middle East denouncing the cartoons publication.