MALAYSIA: ORGANISATION OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE (OIC) NATIONS AT URGE PARTIES TO FOLLOW PALESTINIAN MIDDLE EAST PEACE MAP

Record ID: 343220

  • Title: MALAYSIA: ORGANISATION OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE (OIC) NATIONS AT URGE PARTIES TO FOLLOW PALESTINIAN MIDDLE EAST PEACE MAP
  • Date: 22nd April 2004
  • Summary: (U4) PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA (APRIL 22, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF PUTRAJAYA CONVENTION CENTRE 0.02 2. VARIOUS OF PAKISTAN FOREIGN MINISTER MIAN KHURSHID MAHMUD KASURI AND DELEGATES LEAVING MEETING HALL 0.17 3. WIDE OF DELEGATES OUTSIDE MEETING HALL 0.20 4. SLV MALAYSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SYED HAMID ALBAR LEAVING MEETING HALL 0.27
  • Embargoed: 7th May 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA
  • Country: Malaysia
  • Reuters ID: LVA8EYZPGWB1HNE79FJTTITBKLR0
  • Story Text: Islamic nations to urge parties to follow Palestinian peace roadmap.


    Islamic nations meeting in Malaysia on Thursday (April 22, 2004)
    agreed to urge all parties to stick to the Palestinian peace road map.

    They also called on the United Nations must play a key role in Iraq and
    in Palestinian territories, with security in the region increasingly unstable.

    "Yes, the team will go there and explain to the Quartet the
    necessity to activate their own in reviving the peace process. Because this
    has, the assurances given to Sharon by Mr Bush and these guarantees will
    aggravate tension in the area which threats peace and security in this part of
    the world," Palestinian Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi told reporters
    after an emergency meeting of the 57-state Organisation of the Islamic
    Conference (OIC).

    A morning session of the OIC issued a declaration denouncing Israel's
    plan to withdraw from Palestinian territories, saying it violates a "road
    map" for peace and the early establishment of a Palestinian state.

    It urges the U.N. Security Council to deploy a peacekeeping force in
    Gaza and the West Bank to monitor implementation of the road map. Palestinians
    see the disengagement plan as a plot to trade Gaza for
    effective annexation of large swathes of the West Bank, where Israel has
    its largest concentration of settlements.

    The one-day meeting was brought forward from its original May scheduled
    date because of mounting anger and alienation in the Islamic world over U.S.

    policies in the Middle East, even among Washington's friends.

    Jordan's king abruptly postponed a visit to the White House this week
    and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak said Arabs hold a "hatred never
    equalled" towards America.

    Neither Egypt nor Jordan were at the OIC meeting.

    The meeting also comes as Washington prepares a resolution that would
    ask the U.N. Security Council to give its blessing to a new Iraqi interim
    government, a multinational force and a U.N. role in the country, after the
    planned handover of power to an Iraqi interim government.

    Islamic countries have so far shunned the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq,
    but some are willing to consider Washington's appeal for a multinational force
    under the United Nations.

    The OIC was expected to issue a declaration on Thursday calling for the
    United Nations to play a pivotal role in Iraq.

    Preparations to transfer political power to an interim Iraq government
    have been eclipsed by bloodletting and hostage-taking this month.

    Suicide bombers killed at least 73 people, 17 of them children
    incinerated in minibuses taking them to school, in co-ordinated strikes on
    police stations in Iraq's southern city of Basra on Wednesday.

    As violence rages in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has entered
    a potentially more dangerous phase with the killing of Palestinian militant
    leaders and Washington's backing of Israeli plans to retain Palestinian
    territories it won in war.

    The OIC declaration, however, did not call for sanctions against
    Israel, or for Islamic countries that have ties with Israel such as Egypt,
    Jordan and Turkey, to break relations - something the Palestinian delegation
    had been lobbying for.

    Iraqi representative to the Putrajaya meeting Hamid Al-Bayati said the
    delegates agreed on the importance of handing over power to the Iraqis.

    "The outcome of the Iraqi case is that we expressed the importance
    of handing over sovereignty and giving the Iraqi people their independence.

    Second, the U.N. should play an important role in Iraq, especially after June
    30. Third that co-operation should take place between Iraq and neighbouring
    countries to maintain security and stability in the region," Al-Bayati
    told Reuters Television.

    He also said the delegates condemned the violence in Iraq.

    "There was condemnation to the attacks against civilians, against
    police stations, diplomatic missions in Iraq. And we agreed that the Iraqi
    people are capable of maintaining security. That we should have an army,
    police force and security organisations up and running to maintain security
    and stability in the country," Al-Bayati said.

    Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said they noted the U.S.

    was shifting position on the Palestinian issue.

    "That we have to stick to the road map. For that reasons, I think
    there is a shift of position of the United States. They are now saying that is
    not a finality, they are still bound in order to achieve peace through the
    road map. That they consider that the Israeli action is a step towards
    fulfilling the whole of the road map," Syed Hamid told
    reporters at the end of the meeting.

    Foreign ministers from Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the
    Palestinian Authority are attending the one-day meeting. About a dozen others
    have sent junior ministers or other envoys.


  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register