KHARTOUM, June 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - “No to backing away from religion, No to terrorism in Islam and No to disunity’. With these three ‘No’s the Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Basheer opened the 3-day 29th session of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)’s Foreign Ministers Summit.

The meeting is being held under the banner of "Solidarity and Dialogue".

"I salute the struggle of the Palestinian people under the leadership of President Yasser Arafat," he said, to warm applause and as many of the delegates cried Allah Akbar (God is great), reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He said that the OIC was formed because of the aggression on the Al Aqsa Mosque and added that “the land of Palestine is now facing a Zionist project which aims to uproot the Palestinians. We have to stand by them to defend their right according to international legitimacy.

He called for a real reform for the OIC, to defend the causes of the Islamic world and called for the modernization of its organizational body and its mechanism to achieve ‘noble causes and the ambitions of the Islamic world’. He welcomed the conciliation between Iraq and Kuwait and said that “we refuse any aggression against Iraq because it is a threat to Islamic security and we are also very worried by the tensions between Pakistan and India.”

The Sudanese President said that the 29th session is the first normal session after the September 11 attacks and said that “we need to be aware that there are many elements working on a new formula for the world. The developments which are taking over the world now are making you responsible to return to balance the International relations which have been shaken up.”

He said that it is important that the meeting discusses the issue of the inter-religious dialogue and added that the Islamic world has a lot of positive values in addition to a rich civilization, history, culture and resources that can not be ignored. “It is our duty today to adopt a dialogue that will make these values appear,” he said.

The Arab leaders focused attention on U.S. President George W. Bush's speech on Middle East peace, which dominated the opening day of the meeting.

"We hope the points contained in this speech will form an outline to creating a just and global peace in the region, and lead to a Palestinian state as approved by the Palestinians (and) represented by Yasser Arafat," said Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, in a speech read to the meeting by his Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jaber al-Thani.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa raised the issue of the speech both in his speech and a statement to journalists.

Bush's blueprint for Middle East peace contained some "positive points", he said, while stressing that Arab countries must be involved in the creation of a Palestinian state.

"It is a very important speech by the American President and it must be given all the attention it deserves, because we are at a very critical moment," he said.

"I hope that consultations among Arab countries will lead to an objective Arab stance to assist the creation of a Palestinian state," the Arab League chief told reporters.

The Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia and Syria, Prince Saud al-Faisal and Faruq al-Shara, who were also present at the OIC meeting, refused to comment on the Bush speech to reporters.

In the ministerial meeting, Mussa said the Bush speech "deals with many issues and raises many questions."

"This speech raises the creation of a Palestinian state and it is a point about which we must talk, in detail, with the U.S. administration," he said, addressing the Arab states in the 57-member organization.

"In any case, it is impossible to give up on the rights of the Palestinian people to return to June 4, 1967 borders, to an independent state with East Jerusalem as capital and a fair solution for Palestinian refugees," he said.

Unlike his counterparts, the Palestinian representative, Faruq Qaddumi, the PLO's political department chief, made no reference to the Bush speech as he addressed the conference in the name of the OIC's Arab states.

The Foreign Ministers’ meeting is expected to discuss several issues including a proposed peace conference, the Arab peace initiative as well as other developments related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the situation of the city of Jerusalem and the Islamic endowments in the holy city.

The conference will also discuss the situation in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Chechnya, Jammu and Kashmir, the political situation in Sierra Leone, the Comoros Islands, developments of Iraqi-Kuwaiti relations, the Armenian aggression on Azerbaijan and the situation in Cyprus.

Also on the agenda are issues of Islamic minorities, as the meeting will discuss the protection of the rights of these groups who are part of the OIC as well as the Muslims in South Philippines, the Muslim minorities in Myanmar (previously known as Burma) and the follow up of human rights issues in Islam.

The conference will also go through the media organizations that are affiliated to the OIC such as the Islamic International News Agency and the Organization of the Union Of Islamic Countries Radio Stations.

In the economic field, the conference will discuss the economical situation of some member states and the problems they face and to attempt to support economical reform in these countries and the strengthening of trade relations between them. They will discuss the effects of regional and international economic unities on the Islamic world including efforts such as the introduction of the single European currency the Euro.