Danish politician in cartoon crisis hopes to turn Denmark into a beacon of free speech.

COPENHAGEN - A DANISH politician who stood out as a moderate Muslim voice during the Prophet Mohammed cartoon crisis said in an interview published on Friday he wanted to turn Denmark into a beacon of free speech.

'My ambition is to turn Denmark into the country of freedom of expression, and we are working to organise an (international) conference every two years in Copenhagen on freedom of expression', Mr Naser Khader, a centre-right member of parliament, told the weekly Weekendavisen.

The conference, he said, will 'measure how far we've come in our efforts to fight Islamism' and will serve as 'inspiration for moderate Muslims around the world,' he said.

Mr Khader, of Syrian-Palestinian origin who heads up the tiny Liberal Alliance party (previously New Alliance), catapulted onto the national stage as a voice of moderation when 12 caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, first published in a Danish paper in 2005, sparked angry Muslim protests around the world.

He said on Friday that he and a number of other prominent critics of radical Islam had recently met in France to create an international organisation aimed at combatting Islamism.

While refusing to divulge the name of the new association or the identities of its other founders, Mr Khader told Weekendavisen they had all 'enthusiastically embraced the idea of creating a Copenhagen conference.'

The group had chosen to work behind the scenes for the time-being, he said, adding however that the founders were all 'world-famous people who fight for freedom of expression.'