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WELLINGTON (AP) - Religious extremism in the Middle East is spilling over into the Asia-Pacific region and testing the mettle of mixed-faith societies, New Zealand's prime minister told a forum on keeping the peace between religions Tuesday.

"The heightened tensions of the Middle East have spilled over into our region, in the form of religious radicalization," Prime Minister Helen Clark told a meeting of 150 politicians and faith leaders.

She did not elaborate, but cited the 2002 nightclub attacks by the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group that killed 202 people on Indonesia's Bali island as terrorism in the region that had been "fomented by extremists invoking the name of religion."

Clark made the comments at a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Interfaith Dialogue, a forum for officials from 15 countries to discuss ways of easing religious extremism in the region.

She said Asia-Pacific countries must build bridges between their societies, faiths and beliefs if they are to defeat religious extremism.

She said communities in southern Thailand and the southern Philippines already face violence carried out in the name of religion and directed at those who do not share that faith.

"If we can make progress here, if we can build real bridges based on respect and acknowledgment of the shared values and worth of our different faiths and beliefs, then we defeat those who would trade in hate," she said.

The two-day meeting is being attended by officials from Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Fiji, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.