Dutch minister's Muslim "genes" remark misread-govt

AMSTERDAM, Jan 20 (Reuters) Remarks by Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot that a small number of Muslim extremists have intolerance in their genes have been misrepresented and taken out of context, his ministry said.

During a visit to Brazil earlier this week Bot discussed immigrant integration in the Netherlands in an interview with Brazilian newspaper Correio Braziliense.

The newspaper quoted Bot as saying of Muslim immigrants: ''They may have become Dutch citizens but they have different genes. They are less tolerant.'' The Netherlands, which has a population of 16 million, has historically been regarded as a tolerant society, but ethnic and racial tensions have risen in recent years, heightened by two political murders.

''We have to work harder so that one million Muslims living in Holland become true Dutch citizens,'' Bot's quote continued.

Brazilian reporter Samy Adghirni has said he stands by the story and the quotes. The interview was conducted in English.

In reaction to mounting indignation at the interview, Bot's spokesman Herman van Gelderen yesterday said ''This is a total misrepresentation and misinterpretation of what the minister wanted to say.'' Although Bot had mentioned the word ''genes'' he did so whilst raising his hands and making a gesture to show quotation marks, to indicate that he did not mean this literally, van Gelderen said.

Bot had also said that integration for the overwhelming number of migrants to the Netherlands was going well before going on to talk about a small group of radicals who seemed to have intolerance in their genes.

Turkish Daily News, an English language newspaper in mainly Muslim Turkey, ran a cover-story based on the interview yesterday.

Bot, a member of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's Christian Democrats, became Foreign Minister in December 2003 after a career in the diplomatic service which included a posting as ambassador to Turkey.

REUTERS MQA BST0420