Divided Muslim Ummah holds Twelfth OIC Summit
The Twelfth Islamic Summit of the OIC was held in Cairo on February 6-7 under the Chairmanship of President Mohammed Morsi. Though the Charter of 57-member OIC stipulates that Summits be held every three years, it was held after 5 years. The Eleventh Summit was held in Dakar, Senegal in March 2008.
This is the first Summit hosted by Egypt since its establishment in 1969. The theme of the Summit was “The Islamic World: New Challenges and Growing Opportunities.†Only 17 heads of state and government attended. Other member states were represented by senior ministers and officials.
The Summit was held in the backdrop of widespread political instability and violence in the member states, particularly in the Arab region. The “Arab Spring†has aroused the entire Middle East. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen are faced with grave political instability. Syria is in the midst of a brutal civil war. Iraq is far from being stable after the American aggression. Afghanistan is fighting an inconclusive war with the Taliban. The Palestinians are deeply divided and smarting under atrocious Israeli occupation. Jordan is under threat of disintegration. And a new conflict has broken over in Mali, where the French have gone to war against Islamic terrorists. Above all, the Shia-Sunni divide has become more pronounced over the past several years.
Egypt hosted the Summit at a time when the embattled President Mohammed Morsi has been fighting the opposition to save his presidency. The conference was held in Al-Tagammu Al-Khamis, a suburb of Cairo, well away from the sites of clashes between Egyptian protesters and police.
The 164-paragraph Final Communiqué discussed all the contentious issues facing the member states. The Summit focused on five areas: conflicts and disputes in the Islamic world; ways to combat religious intolerance and Islamophobia; humanitarian issues in the Islamic world; economic and trade cooperation between member states and promoting scientific and technological cooperation between Islamic countries.
During the two-day conference delegates were seized with the civil war in Syria, which has been going on since March 2011. Incidentally, Syria was suspended from the organisation at the 4th Extraordinary OIC Summit held in Makkah in August 2012, despite strong opposition from Iran. The Final Communiqué, while condemning the ongoing bloodshed, called for immediate cessation of violence and killing to save Syria from total civil war, which will threaten the security of the entire region.
The Communiqué supported Lakhdar Brahimi's mission and called upon President Bashar Al Assad to start serious dialogue with the opposition forces in order to pave the way for a transition process that would lead the Syrian people to achieve democratic reforms.
The section on Syria in the Final Communiqué was driven by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Egypt -- all strongly opposed to the Alawite (Shia) President Bashar Al Assad regime. The 4th Extraordinary Islamic Summit setup a “Quartet†to find a solution to the Syrian crisis. It includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran.
Iranian President Ahmedinejad, who was in Cairo for the Summit, strongly supports President Bashar and is in favour of a non-military solution, but did not oppose the paragraphs on Syria. Iran, a member of the Quartet, was happy that the Summit did not ask Bashar Al Assad to step down.
Apart from attending the Summit, Ahmedinejad also sought to improve relations with Egypt, the regional heavyweight. “If Tehran and Cairo see more eye to eye on regional and international issues, many issues will change,†remarked Ahmedinejad. Mohammed Amr Kamel, the Egyptian foreign minister reiterated: “Egypt's relationship with Iran will never come at the expense of Gulf nations.†Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb of al-Azhar said Iran should not seek the “extension of Shia reach†in the Gulf states.
Iran had severed relations with Egypt, following Egypt's recognition of Israel in 1980. Ahmedinejad's visit follows the one to Tehran by Mohammed Morsi for the Non-Aligned Summit in August 2012. Though Morsi kissed Ahmedinejad on his arrival in Cairo, the bilateral meeting between the two on the sidelines of the conference helped little to break the existing frigid relations. The tour was soured when a Syrian expatriate threw shoes at Ahmedinejad when he was visiting an old Cairo mosque.
As is customary, the Summit adopted a separate Resolution on Palestine. It condemned Israel's systematic and gross violation of Human Rights of the Palestinian people. The Summit welcomed the decision of the UN General Assembly to grant Palestine non-member observer status in the United Nations. The Resolution strongly condemned Israel's ongoing building of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land and called on the international community to realise the two-state solution based on relevant UN resolutions.
The Summit also adopted a “Declaration on the situation in Mali.†The conference, deeply concerned at the security situation prevailing in Mali, expressed full solidarity with Mali. While condemning the acts of diverse terrorist groups it took note of a UNSC Resolution, which sets out a global approach for resolving the multidimensional crisis in Mali. The Summit decided to set up an OIC Contact Group on Mali to closely monitor the situation. The Declaration conspicuously omitted any reference to France, which is at war with the terrorists in Mali.
What is striking is the absence of any paragraph in the Final Communiqué on the plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar. The 4th Extraordinary Summit, however, dealt at length with the issue and adopted a separate resolution on the situation of the Rohingyas, calling upon the Myanmar regime to cease all kinds of discrimination against the minority community and ensure human rights.
The Summit nominated Saudi Minister Iyad Madani as the next Secretary General of the Organization. He will take over from Turkey's Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in January 2014.
The conference laid bare the multiple divisions within the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world over different conflicts bedeviling the Islamic Ummah. Egypt's Al Ahram has termed the meeting a “Talking Shop.†Past OIC summits had adopted strong resolutions over the Palestinian and Israeli conflict but member states failed to coordinate their energies to secure a solution. That is primarily because of the vested alliances that some of the strong and rich countries have maintained with the Americans and Europeans.
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