Launching an urgent appeal for dialogue between Islam and Christianity, Khatami told an audience at the World Council of Churches (WCC) that Iran's dominant Islamic faith ruled out the use of nuclear weapons. "We cannot seek nuclear weapons because of our religious faith, I told our religious leaders," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "The Islam that I know does not allow the use of nuclear weapons, then we cannot go ahead and manufacture them," the Iranian president added in response to questions. Khatami's comments came a day after Iran said it had given the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the formal go-ahead to carry out more intrusive inspections of its suspect nuclear program. The United States has voiced concern that the Islamic republic is using a civil atomic energy program as a cover for secret nuclear weapons development. During his address to a seminar on religious tolerance organized by the WCC, which groups the world's Christian and Orthodox faiths with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, Khatami also gave an unusually frank endorsement of western democracy. "I think democracy is the only alternative, we can take it as Muslims," he said. "We must accept this has been materialized in the West, we must accept this as Muslims," Khatami, an Islamic scholar added, warning that the alternative was authoritarian and despotic rule. Iran had problems, the president admitted, "we have violations of human rights, we know these are going on", although he claimed the country had the most democratic system in the region. Khatami's principal speech focused on a plea for religious tolerance, warning that the shared values of faith and religion had been eroded worldwide by bigotry as well as by anti-religious sentiment. "The dialogue between civilizations, but also the dialogue between religions, in particular between Islam and Christianity are a vital, imperative and unavoidable necessity." "I have to add in this respect that unfortunately those with power in this world, instead of reducing and removing the misunderstandings, are contributing to their revival," he added. Iran's president also responded to a question about the impact of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, pointing out that the 20th century had been marked by unprecedented wars and violence, including the "ugly face of terrorism". "It showed its ugliest face in the cities of New York and Washington in September 2001," he added. The Iranian leader, seen as a reformist figure in the Islamic state, was in Geneva primarily to attend a UN conference on the impact and development of information technology. The digital boom had increased the ability to communicate, but was not able to overcome a gulf in understanding, he cautioned. "We must note that in our global village, we are unable to understand each other," Khatami observed. PIN/AFP