Friday, August 19 2005 10:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: The United States (US) has expressed 'serious concern' over anti-Christian and anti-Jewish passages in Pakistani textbooks and termed them as 'unacceptable and inciteful.'

"The issue is a matter of concern for the US even though Pakistan is in the process of reviewing the educational system," State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said.

"These type of reports are of serious concern to us," he said referring to reports in a section of the US media that 'jihad' was still a part of school curricula in Pakistan.

The United States has specifically raised the issue of 'unacceptable and inciteful' textbooks with the Pakistan Government.

"We have engaged the Pakistani Government on this issue, specifically on the issue of textbooks and language that, upon reading it, was clearly, clearly unacceptable and inciteful or would cause people to perhaps lash out with violent actions and encourages people to do that," McCormack told reporters here.

He said the issue was raised during the recent visit of the Pakistani Education Minister to Washington.

"We understand that the Pakistani Government has set up a review process to look at these various issues and that President (Pervez) Musharraf has declared his opposition to extremism and he has taken actions against extremists," he said.

"This is a process in which President Musharraf and his cabinet are working to reform the educational system, the madrasas as well as the textbooks and they do have a process for reviewing it. But it is an issue of concern," he said.