VALLETTA, Malta (AP) – Commonwealth leaders cautioned in a declaration at their summit yesterday that anti-terrorism measures must conform to international accords guaranteeing human rights.

The 53 heads of government attending the three-day summit agreed to a final statement promoting “dialogue, tolerance and understanding among civilisations” as a key anti-terrorism tool.

“States must ensure that measures taken to combat terrorism comply with their obligations under international law, in particular human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law,” the 103-point final declaration said.

Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi told reporters that no nation’s policies or measures were singled out in the summit’s discussion on how to combat terrorism.

Tough interrogations and lengthy detention of terrorism suspects, often in isolated locations, have prompted human rights advocates to criticise key approaches in the anti-terrorism strategy of the US administration.

The Commonwealth leaders condemned terrorism in all its forms, and stressed that “targets and deliberate killing of civilians through acts of terrorism cannot be justified or legitimised by any cause or grievance.” Counter-terrorism efforts must “also take into account the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism”, their declaration said.

The Commonwealth has no legal powers to enforce any of its positions, but officials expressed hope that the consensus of so many leaders from around the world – accounting for roughly a third of the globe’s population – will carry some moral weight.

Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that during the informal talks, he emphasised that attention must be paid to social and economic circumstances when forging anti-terrorism strategy.

Most of the meeting’s discussions were dominated by concerns that many of the Commonwealth’s members, including African nations and Caribbean and Pacific island countries largely dependent on agriculture, would not get a fair deal in next month’s World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong.

Commonwealth leaders issued a separate declaration Saturday night to pressure the European Union to greatly reduce farm subsidies as a way to level the playing field for poorer countries in world markets.

The European Union must offer to cut agricultural subsidies if next month’s global trade talks in Hong Kong are to deliver “early and substantial dividends” for the developing world, the trade statement declared.

The declaration held out the US trade proposal as a model. That proposal calls for substantially higher cuts in tariffs for agricultural products than the EU does.

“It is still going to be very difficult to move the EU, but the Americans have made a very big offer,” Australian Prime Minister John Howard said after the Commonwealth issued its appeal to the EU. “It is more generous than most people expected.”

Caribbean nations were lobbying for compensation to cushion their economies in the next few years from the effects of a landmark EU accord earlier in the week to slash sugar prices by 36 per cent.

The WTO forced the EU to enact sugar price reform after Australia, Thailand and Brazil lodged complaints.

Europe’s policies of generously subsidising its farmers have been a major hurdle in the talks aimed at opening markets to producers from poorer countries.

At a news conference, Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo denounced as “grossly unfair” an EU decision to set aside some euro6 billion (about US$7.7 billion) for European producers and processors and only euro40 million (US$47 million) for Caribbean, Pacific and African sugar producers.

Jagdeo said he lobbied Blair, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, to press for a fairer deal from the European Union for Caribbean countries. “He’s going to try his best. He’s not making any promises,” Jagdeo said about Blair’s response.