WASHINGTON, Feb 8: President Gen Pervez Musharraf is trying to “band together” Arab and Muslim states to address the Israeli-Palestinian issue and to bridge the threatening Shia-Sunni divide in the Islamic community, says the US State Department.

This is the first US official description of the initiative that Gen Musharraf launched late last month, visiting nine Arab and Muslim states on a mission that even the Pakistani government has not yet defined.

“President Musharraf has made some recent trips around the globe to Arab Muslim states and some non-Arab Muslim states to talk about a couple of … issues,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told a briefing in Washington.

“One, how they can band together to address the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and two, also how to, in some way, address the divide within the Muslim community between the Sunni and Shia.”

When asked to comment on the initiative, he said: “Any initiatives by responsible parties such as Pakistan or Indonesia or Egypt or Turkey in trying to tackle some of these tough issues in a responsible way are welcome.”

The spokesman, however, said that he would defer any specific comment “until we have a better understanding of what it is that is being proposed. As I understand it now, it's still taking shape.”

Gen Musharraf stirred world-wide speculations by visiting nine Muslim and Arab capitals one after another while senior government officials in Islamabad described the move as a Middle East peace initiative but gave no details.

During a recent trip to Washington, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, emphasised two key points for bringing peace to the Middle East: raising a joint Muslim force to replace American troops in Iraq and establishing an independent Palestinian state along with Israel.

He stressed these two points at every gathering he addressed, causing political observers to speculate that both points are included in the proposals Gen Musharraf is discussing with Muslim leaders.

Some reports in the US media claimed that Gen Musharraf is urging Muslim states to recognise Israel if it allows an independent Palestinian state to be established.

So far, both the State Department and the White House have avoided commenting on these speculations but on Wednesday the White House strongly defended Gen Musharraf as an "absolutely essential ally" in the war on terror.

At an afternoon briefing, White House spokesman Tony Snow declared that Washington would continue to work with the Pakistani leader.

The opportunity for an effusive endorsement of Gen Musharraf’s leadership was provided by an Indian journalist.