SRINAGAR: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)’s Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir is hoping for a “real dialogue” between India and Pakistan. The hope was made public after the Contact Group of OIC met in Jeddah on May 29, 2019, on the margin of the OIC Foreign Ministers Conference.
In his statement to the meeting, according to an OIC statement, the OIC Secretary General, Dr Yousef Bin Ahmed Al Othaimeen, expressed his hope for a real dialogue to be resumed between Pakistan and India such as to constitute a significant instrument towards a result-driven management of all the outstanding issues, foremost of which the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
“The Secretary General reaffirmed the OIC’s principled stand fully in support of the people of Jammu and Kashmir’s achievement of their legitimate rights,” the statement said. “He also expressed the hope that the OIC Member States’ support in this regard would be concretized through practical and effective measures in favour of the Kashmiri people.”
The statement added: “The meeting called on India to honour the resolutions issued by the UN on the Kashmiri issue, to the effect that the final administration of Jammu and Kashmir shall be defined in accordance with the will of the Kashmiri people to be expressed through a democratic process in the form of a free and integral referendum under the UN patronage.”
“The Contact Group’s meeting welcomed the recommendations listed in the UN report on Kashmir which was issued in June 2018, and which called for the prompt establishment of a fact-finding committee on Kashmir. It also called on India to allow the UN fact-finding mission and other international human rights and humanitarian bodies to visit Kashmir,” the statement added.
Earlier speaking to the Islamic Summit’s fourteenth ordinary session being held in Makkah Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan sought right of self-determination for Kashmir.
“The people of Kashmir must also have their right to self-determination; us as a body must stand against the oppression happening with the Muslim world,” Khan was quoted saying. He touched upon the “plight of the people” of Kashmir as well as Palestine, saying Pakistan supports the two-state solution and recognising East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) met in Saudi Arabia early Saturday for the 14th session of the Islamic Summit. The Summit followed two emergency Arab meetings the night before in Makkah criticising Iran’s behaviour and influence in countries like Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, Pakistan’s official news-gatherer APP reported.
Issues that were taken up for discussion included a spike in tensions in the Persian Gulf, to Palestinian statehood, the plight of Rohingya refugees and the growing threat of Islamophobia.
The Summit also witnessed Khan’s maiden speech to the OIC. He wanted the OIC to sanitise the UN and other world groupings about the hurt that the Muslim world feels when Westerners resort to blasphemy against the prophet of Islam.
Meanwhile, the OIC Ministerial Committee for Accountability for Human Rights Violations against the Rohingya Minority in Myanmar held its second meeting on Thursday, 30 May 2019, in Jeddah.
This was a follow-up to the Banjul meeting in The Gambia in February 2019. The Gambia and Bangladesh delivered statements as co-chairpersons of the Committee provided a detailed explanation of the current situation and developments of the Rohingya minority and refugees in the Bangladesh-Myanmar border area and the overall implications of the issue.
The Committee Members also reviewed the suffering of the Rohingya minority and the developments affecting their future in Myanmar and in diaspora countries in order to formulate a unified position of the OIC Member States towards the crisis.
