Delegates to the seventh Conference for Peace in the Middle East held that sustainable peace would only be attained with the active participation of women and that the experience of Cyprus was a model framework for peacemaking in the region.

A major cause for the international culture of conflict is that men are taking a disproportionate lead over women in world affairs, according to Federico Mayor Zaragoza, vice-president of administration for St. Philip's College at San Antonio, Texas, USA.

Studies show that women's attitudes to foreign policy and peace issues vary greatly from men, but women occupy less than 1 percent of top political positions.

The conference focused on key questions like why nations spent more on war than on peace and how children could be educated to seek dialog and cooperation.

"We must not only have ministries of defense, but create ministries of peace; not only fund military academies, but obligatory peace education in schools; not only weapons development, but peace research to resolve conflict," said Norwegian Ingeborg Breines, UNESCO's representative to Pakistan.

The conference, organized by the Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP), was held in Paphos from May 9 – 12 and was attended by delegates from Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and the US.

Delegates called for a "speedy success" of attempts to resolve the Cyprus problem and agreed to send letters of encouragement to Tassos Papadopoulos, president of the Republic of Cyprus, Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader, and to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General.

The conference, entitled "Women's Role in Building a Culture of Peace", was sponsored by WFWP-Japan.

The WFWP is an NGO that works in association with the United Nations Department of Public Information.Additional reporting by Middle East Times , London