WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama laid out on Thursday a multipronged vision to confront violent extremism. It advocates fighting violence with democracy and prosperity.

In both his speeches at a White House summit on the issue, Mr Obama reminded the international community that military action and law-enforcement alone could not defeat terrorism. He reiterated his stance that Islam was not the cause of terrorism and that extremists did not represent Islam.

He also stressed the need for taking immediate steps to break the cycle of sectarian conflicts and for changing the perception of religious minorities and Muslims.

Addressing delegates from more than 60 countries on the second day of the threeday summit, Mr Obama said the international community needed to address `grievances` that terrorists exploit, including economic and political issues.

`We can help Muslim entrepreneurs and youths work with the private sector todevelop social media tools to counter extremist narratives on the Internet,` he said in an earlier message.

But Mr Obama clarified that `poverty alone does not cause a person to become a terrorist, any more than poverty alone causes someone to become a criminal`.

He noted that there were billions of people who were poor and were still law-abiding, peaceful and tolerant.

`But when people especially young people feel entirely trapped in impoverished communities ... that feeds instability and disorder, and makes those communities ripe for extremist recruitment,` he warned.

`We have seen that across the Middle East and we`ve seen it across North Africa.

So if we`re serious about countering violent extremism, we have to get serious about confronting these economic grievances.

President Obama also urged US security agencies to improve their relations with the Muslims living in this country.

`We can`t `securitise` our relationship with Muslim Americans dealing with them solely through the prism of law-enforcement, he said.

`When we do, that only reinforces suspicions, makes it harder for us to build the trust that we need to work together.

President Obama also said that no single religion was responsible for violence and terrorism and emphasised the need to lift up the voice of tolerance in the United States and beyond.

The two speeches, like his earlier statements on Islam, irked Republican lawmakers and media commentators who criticised him for `going out of his way to please Muslims.

They also censured him for suggesting that creating more jobs for Muslim youths could help address the terrorism crisis.Fox News collected an opinion survey and claimed that 68 per cent voters want Mr Obama to be tougher on Islamic extremists.

But this did not deter President Obama from projecting his opinion that extremists, and not Islam or the larger Muslim community, were responsible for terrorism.

`Al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) ... try to portray themselves as ... holy warriors in defence of Islam ... propagate the notion that America and the West, generally is at war with Islam. That`s how they recruit. That`s how they try to radicalise young people,` he said.

`We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie.

Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders -they`re terrorists.

The president also noted that respected Muslim clerics and scholars around the world had rejected the extremists` interpretation of their faith and were preaching peace and justice.

Mr Obama pointed that the Holy Quran `says whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind` and this message represented the belief of over a billion people around the world.

He told the international community that the extremists were doing more harm to Muslims than to any other religious group.

`Pakistan`s Taliban has mounted a long campaign of violence against the Pakistani people that now tragically includes the massacre of more than 100 schoolchildren and their teachers,` he said.