Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The Collective Voice of The Muslim World
Date: 15/11/2012
The 39th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of OIC Member States (Session of Solidarity for Sustainable Development) opened today 15 November 2012 in Djibouti, capital city of the Republic of Djibouti. The Conference elected the Bureau, with Djibouti as Chairman, Afghanistan, Palestine and Gabon as Vice Chairmen and Kazakhstan as Rapporteur.
In his address to the Conference, the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, condemned the new Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, urging the Security Council to intervene. He said that the Israeli blockade on the socio-economic reconstruction of the Strip is illegal and a collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, adding that the consequences of this blockade are an ongoing crime against humanity that has to end immediately.
With regard to Syria, the Secretary General asserted: “We condemn the ongoing killings, bloodshed, deliberate killing of civilians, and destruction of homes and property. We were the first to intervene in order to solve the crisis in Syria since its beginning”. He called upon the parties concerned to respond positively to the mission of the joint envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to stem the bloodshed of Muslims and reach a peaceful solution to the legitimate demands of the Syrian people within Syria’s unity, security and stability. In this connection, he welcomed the Syrian opposition’s agreement in the recent meeting in Doha to unify their ranks.
Prof. Ihsanoglu reiterated the solidarity of the OIC with the National Transitional Government of the Republic of Mali in the face of the looming challenges to its sovereignty and territorial integrity. He confirmed the Organisation’s support for the Burkina-Faso-led mediation efforts put in by the ECOWAS. He also indicated that a high-level delegation from the OIC General Secretariat would be dispatched to Mali and Burkina Faso to discuss the possibilities of peaceful negotiations that would spare the country the evils of war.
Concerning the Sudan, the OIC Secretary General appealed to the international community to honour its commitments about writing off Sudan’s debt and supporting its economy to face the post-cessation challenges. In another respect, he called upon the Sudan and South Sudan to continue their negotiations in order to settle the outstanding issues in a spirit of brotherhood and good neighbourliness. He also called for a peaceful solution to tension in South Kurdufan and the Blue Nile as well as for the implementation of the Doha Peace Process for Darfur. As regards the situation in Myanmar and in the light of the accelerated deterioration of conditions and the systematic measures which amount to ethnic cleansing, the Secretary General said: “I recently sent a letter to the US President Barrack Obama on the occasion of his forthcoming visit to Myanmar. I call on Islamic States members of the United Nations to submit draft resolutions to both the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council including OIC’s viewpoint pursuant to the resolutions of the Islamic Summit, to avoid that the relevant draft resolution of the European Union remains the only draft resolution at the UN”. He went on to say that the Member States are under an obligation to make out the case to the Security Council since the acts committed against the Rohingya take the form of ethnic cleansing.
Prof. Ihsanoglu expressed his thanks to the governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Azerbaijan for their voluntary contribution of US$ 3 million each to the General Secretariat, of which it was in dire need.
In his speech to the Conference, the President of the Republic of Djibouti, HE Mr Ismail Omar Guelleh, welcomed the attendees and expressed his support for the OIC efforts concerning the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar as well as for Palestine’s endeavour to obtain recognition in the United Nations. 
