Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The Collective Voice of The Muslim World
Date: 14/01/2015
Upon his arrival in Baghdad on Tuesday evening, 13 January 2015, the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Mr. Iyad Ameen Madani, held a series of meetings with a number of Iraqi religious figures in addition to the special representative of the UN Secretary General in Iraq.
At the start of his visit, Mr. Madani also met with His Holiness the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, Louis Raphael I Sako, at the seat of the Patriarchdom in Baghdad. Madani availed of the occasion to reiterate the OIC’s rejection of any hostility or mistreatment against Christians, underlining the fact that Christians constitute a major component in Iraq that must not be the subject of any prejudice.
Mr. Iyad Ameen Madani stressed that pluralism is a core principle and noted that extremism as a general phenomenon has been a tar witnessed all across the world throughout history. There is a need, he pointed out, for us all to fathom the economic, environmental and social roots of this phenomenon along with the political context in order for us to understand the rise of this phenomenon and how to combat it and debunk it.
On his part, H.H. Patriarch Sako, expressed his gratitude for the OIC Secretary General’s visit, and emphasized that this initiative will have large echoes and that he much relied on the OIC’s address to defeat the phenomenon of extremism. He further added that Christians in Iraq hold the firm belief that, together with their Muslim brothers, they constitute one single nation, having always lived side by side, and insist that this healthy state should be preserved.
In the course of his three-day visit, the OIC Secretary General met with Mr. Nicolai Maldinov, the UN Secretary General’s special representative to Iraq. The two parties agreed on the importance of the OIC’s work in the humanitarian field in Iraq, in addition to the role it assumes in advocating and promoting moderation and balance in the face of fanaticism and extremism, particularly at the present bloodshed-stained juncture through which Iraq is going.
In his meeting with His Eminence Sheikh Mahmoud Sameidai, Chairman of the Sunni Endowment in Iraq, the Secretary General was briefed on the current situation in the country and assured of the importance of the OIC’s role in supporting Iraq’s unity and stability, with Sameidai paying special homage to the OIC for its role in 2006 and its launch then of the Makkah Document which largely alleviated the then menacing sectarian tensions.
Sameidai urged the OIC to further energize this role and build on it in accordance with the requisites of the current state of play in Iraq.
In another meeting that brought together the OIC Secretary General and His Eminence Sheikh Saleh Haidari, Chairman of the Shiite Endowment, Mr. Haidari praised the OIC’s discourse in international fora unequivocally rejecting any advocation of extremism and expressed his concurrence with the OIC’s views against violence and terrorism. Mr. Haidari also welcomed any role that the OIC may play in support of Iraqi’s unity, and voiced his rejection of any attempts to implicate the religious sects in any ongoing political tugs-of-war.
