SG Speech

Date: 09/06/2013

Your Excellencies President Hamid Karzai Mr Ahmad Bin Abdullah Bin Zaid Al-Mahmoud, (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for the Council of Ministers)  Mr Nassirou Arifari Bako, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Benin The Honourable Tara Sonenshine, US Under Secretary of State Honourable Guests Ladies and Gentlemen It is a great pleasure to be invited to address the US Islamic World Forum which is now celebrating its 10th year heralding “A Decade of Dialogue”. The Forum has indeed become an invaluable platform for engagement between American leaders from government, business, and civil society with their counterparts from OIC member countries around the world. The United States remains a vital partner for the OIC and must continue to play an active role as the leading power in the world. As President Barack Obama enters his second term in office, it is time to exercise ‘determined leadership’ to fulfil his call for better relations with the Muslim world. Recent history reminds us that allowing problems to remain unsolved does not help maintain peace and security in the world. Palestine is a good example of that. The Palestinian issue remains at the heart of the most pressing concerns of the OIC and the international community. For more than 60 years the Palestinian people’s aspirations to realize their legitimate rights to freedom, sovereignty, and self-determination in their own independent state and in their own homeland have been unrealized. In both his famous June 2009 statement in Cairo, and in his 2010 speech at the UN General Assembly, President Obama raised expectations among the entire Muslim world for the long awaited establishment of a Palestinian state. In fact the recent General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state constitutes a timely and crucial opportunity, which should be utilized in full in order to give renewed momentum to the currently deadlocked peace process. It is long overdue for Israeli and Palestinian Peoples to live side by side and in peace and security. Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen, As the world’s second largest intergovernmental organization the OIC is committed to cooperate with the United States and the international community to promote and consolidate global peace, stability, harmony, security and development. I have repeatedly underlined on many occasions that the OIC is guided by the principles of moderation and modernization. The basic documents of the OIC such as the Ten Year Program of Action and the new Charter provided a visionary road map to meet the challenges of the 21st Century we are witnessing today in the Muslim world. Strengthened and inspired by the vision and objectives of the new Charter and the TYPOA we have managed to elevate the profile of the OIC with greater visibility at the international level and have made this Organization a global actor and strategic partner among international institutions.   Since I came into office in 2005 I have worked hard to develop strong partnerships with the United States. In fact the appointment of the first US Special Envoy to the OIC took place as the result of our efforts to work with both the previous and current US administrations to facilitate the creation of a high level position which could enhance bilateral consultations between the United States Government and the OIC and lead to increased understanding and cooperation. In 2010 Hillary Clinton made the first-ever visit by a sitting U.S. Secretary of State to the OIC headquarters in Jeddah to discuss the Middle East Peace Process. The following year I became the first OIC Secretary General to be invited to the White House for a meeting with the President. Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen There are many examples of successful OIC-US cooperation which are symbolized in the joint efforts to eradicate polio, promote maternal health, encourage youth entrepreneurship, develop greater opportunities for women in education and science, as well as efforts to counter radical extremism and other international security issues. Perhaps the most significant example of OIC-US cooperation is in the consensual passage of UN Human Rights Council resolution 16/18 on combating religious intolerance. I would like to reiterate here that our objective in tabling the resolution was to combat intolerance based on religion and faith and to find a working mechanism so that freedom of speech to which we are all committed, is not abused to incite hatred and intolerance including violence. The OIC is an international intergovernmental organization and committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments. It upholds and respects an individual’s right to freedom of expression. It is with this in mind that I initiated – with the presence and participation of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – the Istanbul Process for a consensual implementation of this resolution in July 2011. In this process the OIC has demonstrated ability to build consensus on the most sensitive of international issues. I am pleased to see that in this Forum there are Working Groups addressing freedom of speech and religion but also other critical issues of economic development and social change; advancing women’s rights, as well as the ways faith leaders and diplomats can work together to tackle problems affecting the international community. It is in precisely this kind of intellectual forum where far reaching and meaningful solutions to such challenges can be identified. Let me say here that we cannot attend to the problems facing the Muslim world in piecemeal fashion. There must be a comprehensive strategy and outlook that takes into account the broader issues while recognizing the specific parameters of each problem. If we look to the violence and radicalism taking place in Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, we find that there are common features emanating from the general conditions of the Muslim world. A grand vision is necessary to address those conditions while understanding the particular dynamics of each local situation and it must be based on mutual respect and mutual interest. Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen The efforts of the Brookings Institution and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar to organize the US-Islamic World Forum are to be commended. Over the next three days, experts as well as governmental, inter-governmental and NGO representatives gathered here are expected to engage in an intensive examination of US relations with the Islamic world and the transformations occurring across the region. It is clear from the agenda of this Forum that you will be able to explore these issues and much more in the coming days. I look forward to your robust deliberations and wish you a productive and fruitful outcome. I thank you all for your kind attention.

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