Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenede is planning to include two Muslim ministers in his new government. Labour MP Ahmed Abu-Taleb, of Moroccan descent and who still holds Moroccan citizenship, will become the Minister for Social Affairs, while a Turkish woman, Labor MP Nebahat Albayra, will take charge of the Minister of Immigration and Integration.

Another Turk, Ibrahim Bayla, is already the minister of education in Sweden.

Holland's PM Jan Peter Balkenede has rejected calls by a right-wing anti-immigration party to block the Muslim ministerial appointments on the grounds that the two hold dual citizenship.

The move to appoint two Muslim government ministers comes in a country that has had its share of violent Muslim-Dutch clashes and that has long experienced tense issues of Muslim immigration. In a country of 16.5 million, over a million are Muslim. A million also have dual citizenship - half of them of Moroccan and Turkish origin.

Tensions between Muslims and native Dutch have been simmering for years. A 19-year-old youth of Moroccan descent was recently run down and killed by a Dutch driver trying to recover her stolen purse - and she will not be charged. Muslims have blamed ex-Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk for what they consider her tough immigration reforms. In Nov. 2004, filmmaker Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered by a Dutch Muslim for criticizing Islam and implying that Islam tolerates violence against women. The film's screening has been canceled due to Muslim threats.

In 2002, controversial anti-Moslem politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered by a man who considered him a "menace to certain classes of society." Against additional immigration, Fortuyn had said, "Holland is full," and said that Muslims were "busy conquering Western Europe" and called for a "Cold War against Islam."

At present, MP Geert Wilders has become the outspoken opponent of growing Islamic influence in Holland. "Islam and democracy are fully incompatible," Wilders has said, " and they will never be compatible." He has called for a five-year ban on all non-Western immigrants as well as the pre-emptive arrest of those considered to be Islamic radicals. Efforts are in fact underway to require non-western immigrants to pass an integration exam.