UNITED NATIONS — As the former president of Iran, Mohammed Khatemi, yesterday attended a U.N. meeting designed to minimize the clash between Islamists and the West, Turtle Bay was abuzz about Prince Zeid of Jordan, who publicly announced his candidacy for the post of secretary-general, and who is well-positioned to bridge that post-September 11 clash.

Mr. Khatemi, who a decade ago launched a concept known at the United Nations as “dialogue among civilizations,” declined to address reporters as he left a meeting of “eminent persons” who were working on a non-binding declaration of a U.N.-sponsored body now known as “alliance of civilization.”

The “alliance” was embraced last year by Secretary-General Annan, and represents to many the failure to move from empty rhetoric to addressing real current international problems. Zeid, on the other hand, is seen as someone who has his feet well-planted in both the Muslim and the Western worlds, and who may be able to make the U.N. relevant to them.

The candidacy of Prince Zeid Raad, the first Middle Easterner and first Muslim in the race, was announced by Jordan yesterday. A second cousin of King Abdullah, the 42-year-old Zeid currently serves as Jordan’s ambassador to the United Nations. He is the sixth man announcing his candidacy so far to replace Mr. Annan, whose term ends December 31. Well respected at Turtle Bay yet not tainted by it, Zeid told The Associated Press yesterday that it was time to consider “a Muslim candidate who is familiar with the U.N. but not of the U.N.”

Zeid is well suited to “talk to both sides,” a former U.N. official, Thant Myint-U, told The New York Sun yesterday, referring the West and Islam. The Burma-born Mr. Thant, whose grandfather, U-Thant, was U.N.secretary-general during the 1960s, served alongside Zeid when the prince was posted by the U.N. in Bosnia. The U.N. has changed since its early, hopeful days, Mr. Thant said. Its founders envisioned “an impartial, first rate, international bureaucracy,” he said. “We don’t have that today.” The organization, he added, needs is to rid itself of “so many utopian exercises.”

While he was not speaking specifically about yesterday’s meeting of the High Level Group charged with creating an Alliance of Civilizations, he might as well have been. The meeting was meant to create some content to Mr. Khatemi’s decade-old concept.

“We have wonderful people here,” Cape Town’s Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, told the Sun. Mr. Khatemi, Mr. Tutu said, “is very, very philosophical. He made wonderful contributions. Everybody made wonderful contributions, everybody.”

The contents of the talks among 15 men and women during the day-long meeting was kept secret yesterday for some reason, and attendants said they would not comment prior to a press conference today and the publication of a joint declaration. One of two Americans present, the New York-based Rabbi Arthur Schneier, also declined to comment on the presence of a former leader of the Tehran regime, which calls for eradicating the Jewish state.

In an unsigned working paper prepared last year, the Alliance’s director, Tomaz Mastnak, uses such unverifiable contentions as “less than one fifth of terrorist acts committed last year can be attributed to ‘Islamists,'” in order to put “the conflict between ‘Islam’ and the ‘West’ — in perspective.”

That “perspective,” however, might be lost on anyone unfamiliar with Turtle Bay’s rhetoric, and is unlikely to register in the real world. As a member of the Hashemite Royal family, which traces its roots to the prophet Mohammed, and which also has traditional strong ties with America and Europe, Zeid seems much better positioned to bridge conflicts between Islam and the West than Iranians like Mr. Khatemi.

While Tehran is planning to conduct a new seminar this fall on Holocaust denial, Zeid was the only Arab ambassador who attended the first ever Turtle Bay Holocaust memorial held earlier this year. Keeping strong ties in the Arab world, he maintains relations with many Israelis, and unlike some Arab colleagues is unafraid to do so openly.

Speaking of the West and Islam, Zeid told AP yesterday that “A United Nations that understands the sources of these schisms, where they occur, and can speak to all sides with experience and credibility, can play an important role in resolving these dangerous conflicts.”

While Washington would “never comment” on its position regarding candidates, America’s U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, told reporters yesterday that Zeid’s investigation of peacekeepers’ sexual exploitation in Africa was “well respected,” and that America will consider his candidacy “very carefully.”