WESTERN security was top of the agenda when Foreign Secretary and Blackburn MP Jack Straw held talks in Brussels in the wake of the American terrorist atrocities.

A long-planned get-to-know-you meeting with senior EU Commissioners and Euro-MPs inevitably turned into another sombre assessment of the global terrorist threat and European solidarity with Washington.

Yesterday's talks ranged over the Middle East crisis and Macedonia, and the urgent need to maintain the push towards more world trade talks in Doha, Qatar in seven weeks - talks the British Government sees as crucial to avoid global economic fallout from the terror attacks.

Mr Straw met foreign trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who earlier told Euro-MPs that the attacks on America on September 11 had damaged the political, economic and social security of the world.

Mr Lamy told the MEPs: "We have to find responses beyond military action against terrorism, however much or however long it takes. Faced with this obvious determination to destabilise, we have to reply with stability."

Mr Straw shares Mr Lamy's view that the forthcoming Doha talks are therefore crucial in the wider battle to bolster world markets and rally democracies economically as well as politically.

During the day, Mr Straw also saw Commission President Romano Prodi, vice-president Neil Kinnock and external relations Commissioner Chris Patten.

And last night he met Euro-MPs to reassure them that the West's response to the attacks would be measured and based on the best available evidence.