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OIC Says Islamic World To Halt Contacts With Israel
DOHA, May 26 (News Agencies) - The Islamic world urged Saturday the United States and the United nations to take urgent action to halt Israeli "aggression" against the Palestinians, and called on Islamic countries to halt all political contact with Israel.
Qatar's emir, as president of the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), called on "the American administration and President George [W.] Bush to intervene urgently" to bring an end to the violence.
"It is not possible to stay silent about the Israeli aggressions ... or to accept an unfair policy," said Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, whose country convened the one-day talks on the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
In a statement issued at the end of the ministerial meeting, the OIC urged the Security council to "take rapid action to stop the serious escalation of the aggression against the Palestinian people".
The conference asked the U.N. to "take its responsibilities ... to guarantee the necessary international protection for the Palestinians" and urged the United States "not to impede the council's work for the adoption of a resolution to that effect".
In the opening session, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat slammed what he called the U.N.'s "total impotence" in the face of mounting deaths in the Palestinian territories, pinning the blame on the United States.
"Why is there this total impotence of the Security Council?" asked Arafat.
Arafat vowed that the Intifada, or uprising, against Israel would continue "until the Palestinian flag is hoisted in Jerusalem."
Israel was being "protected" despite "shirking" peace accords signed with the Palestinians, he charged, while the international community was neglecting its duty to send "a protection force or observers" to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In the final statement, OIC countries also said they decided to "halt all political contact with the Israeli government as long as the aggression and the blockade against the Palestinian people and its national authority continue".
The conference also called on "member states which have established, or have started to take steps to establish relations with Israel within the context of the peace process, to break these relations", urging these countries to "close down any missions or offices, sever all economic relations and halt all forms of normalization with Israel until it meticulously implements the U.N. resolutions on Palestine, al-Quds [Jerusalem] and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The OIC also assigned a ministerial committee, whose members were not revealed, to pressure the Security Council to provide protection for the Palestinians.
The committee is due to visit the capitals of the five permanent members of the Security Council and of the European Union, as well as Washington.
Seeking to close ranks, the Qatari emir said "this meeting is called upon to adopt a unified strategy … to force Israel to end its expansionist policy."
However, the meeting began with a divided front after several countries, including Egypt and some of the Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, kept their foreign ministers away to protest at the fact that an Israeli trade office was still operating in Doha.
Several countries only agreed to attend the meeting - with junior ministers - on the express request of the Palestinian Authority, an Arab diplomat told AFP. A total of 46 member states turned up for the session.
Under the pressure of a boycott by key participants because of the Israeli presence in Doha, Qatari authorities announced the closure of the trade office last November on the eve of an OIC summit there.
But it has emerged that the office is still operating.
The conference also called on "all parties to take a clear stance on the systematic rejection by Israel of international and Arab initiatives aimed at putting an end to the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people".
According to several participants, some countries, led by Syria and Iran, pressured the OIC not to mention the Mitchell report or the Egyptian-Jordanian peace plan in this passage of the final statement.
In a message to the Doha meeting, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for Muslim countries to contribute towards "a return to negotiations" between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Mitchell report and Egyptian-Jordanian initiative were a "real opportunity," he said.
But Arab League secretary general Amr Mussa said the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and its predecessors had "never decided on a peace founded on justice and equality."
Libya, meanwhile, called for retaliation against Mauritania for sending its foreign minister to Israel despite an Arab League call for a halt in political contacts with the Jewish state.
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