By the end of October, Chief Mufti Selim Mehmed will tour regions with Muslim populations together with foreign diplomats to show them how these regions survive in the hard economic conditions and how, regardless of difficulties, they remain an ethnic stability factor. This was announced at a working meeting of the Link Diversity project of the Council of Europe that was held in Sofia on Friday.

"The aim of the project is to release the enormous energy hidden in ethnic differences in the name of the well-being of civil societies on the continent, and Bulgarian society has the creative potential to work on this project," said professor Alexander Andonov, head of the project's national committee for Bulgaria.

An awareness-raising campaign to promote a multiethnic society and democratic citizenship in Bulgaria has been launched. The campaign is supported by Working Table One of the Council of Europe and the German government. The meeting in Sofia was held under the program of the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe.

"The Council of Europe campaign will support stability in Southeastern Europe," a letter from Foreign Minister Solomon Passi to the meeting said. Passi promised the full support of the government for the campaign.

"Bulgaria has probably the strongest traditions in the region in the application of European standards for the protection of human rights and the rights of minorities, and related sociopolitical practices," Boiko Todorov, chief of the Council of Europe Information Centre in Sofia, told the meeting. "Few other organizations, apart from the Council of Europe, have the courage to deal with these issues in such a way," he added.

Although thoroughly observed in recent years, the Muslim population in Bulgaria is an object of special interest since the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S.

Bulgaria's Muslims, who make up 10 per cent of the country's population, may be fully integrated into Bulgarian life, but, unlike their government, they are opposed to the U.S. strikes against Afghanistan, reported Agence France Presse (AFP) last week.

"Every Muslim feels sad when there is an attack against a Muslim country in which innocent people are dying," Fikri Sali, a mufti from the southern Kurdjali region, where the largest numbers of Bulgarian Muslims live, told AFP.

While condemning the September 11 attacks on the United States, Sali believed the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League could have convinced the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born extremist believed to be behind the attacks on New York and Washington. Sali was concerned that the war could escalate into "a war between Christianity and Islam, which would be the end of the world."

In Kurdjali, Muslims live peacefully side by side with Bulgarian Orthodox Christians.