Speaking at the International Security Forum in Munich, Mr. Sharping was reacting to recent war-like statements by the US Republican President George W. Bush castigating Iran, Iraq and North Korea as forming an "axis of evil".

To prevent violence from hundreds of protesters, Federal police and German security forces have taken unprecedented measures, including checking cars and installing roadblocks and forbidding all demonstrations during the time of the meeting.

Many shops were boarded up and police checked cars entering the city as the first of some 250 delegates, among them 38 ministers, including U.S. Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, arrived for the two-day meeting.

The city's central Marienplatz, jostling and pushing broke out as police tried to clear the square of an estimated 2,000 demonstrators who squared off against several hundred officers wearing riot helmets and carrying batons.

Police said that in addition to the 200 people detained, 17 demonstrators had been arrested on charges of using physical aggression

Started Friday with the participation of 250 participants from sixty countries, including members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO and several newly independent states from Central Asia, the conference would address the security situation of the world, particularly in the post 11 September operations, attributed to Mr. Osama Ben Laden and his "Al-Qa’eda" organisation.

Pinpointing Afghanistan as a "bridgehead for global terrorism", Ivanov warned that the "threatening breath" of this "monster" could soon be felt well beyond Central Asia.

Representatives from some Central Asian countries, including Tajikistan, Georgia and Kyrgizstan proclaimed their full support for the American-led campaign against terrorism and called for more and sustained international assistance to reconstruct the war-shattered Afghanistan.