DOHA (IslamOnline) - Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it was boycotting a summit for Muslim countries in Qatar voicing their protest over Doha's relations with Israel.
The Saudi Royal Court said Riyadh would not attend the summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) due on November 12th because of the "deteriorating situation" in Palestine, and Jerusalem in particular.
The Royal Court stated that the success of the OIC summit depends on the outstanding preparations made prior to the summit and its adoption of recommendations made at the Arab League Summit held in Cairo last month, especially those concerning halting the normalization of relations process with Israel.
Although the statement issued by the official Saudi Press Agency did not refer to the ties between Qatar, the host country, and Israel, Saudi officials later said Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abd el-Aziz decided not to attend the OIC summit because of the commercial ties between Qatar and Israel.
Sources said the Crown Prince made the boycott decision after Qatar's refusal to close the Israeli trade and commercial bureau in Doha, against recommendations made at the Arab League emergency summit in Cairo last month to cut off all ties with Israel.
Saudi Arabia is the third Arab country to boycott the OIC summit folowing Bahrain and Libya. Bahrain is also protesting an ongoing border conflict between itself and Qatar.
Libya is not attending either, with Tripoli calling on Muslim member states to boycott the summit over of Qatar's insistence to keep ties with the Israeli state.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Mohamed Khatami, whose country currently holds the OIC’s rotating presidency, called on Qatar to break ties with Israel and close the Israeli trade office before the summit is held.
The OIC came into existence after the collapse of the Ottoman Islamic Caliphate in 1924. The first conference was held in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Two years later, the Caliphate conference was held in Egypt. In 1931, the Jerusalem conference was held in Mecca.
The ideology of the OIC, acknowledged by several international organizations, is based on the philosophic principle of an Islamic Nation, which calls for solidarity among Muslims and the necessity of implementing Islamic Sharia' law.
