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Muslim Nations Caution Against Spread of War at OIC Meeting
DOHA, Oct 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), seeking a united stance on terrorism, heard calls Wednesday for U.S. strikes on Afghanistan to be strictly limited to the authors of the September 11th terror attacks and for innocent lives to be spared, as Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Wednesday appealed to the OIC to act to halt U.S. military action against the country, news agencies and the Afghan Islamic Press reported.
"The military operations must be limited to the authors of the attacks and no one else, so that the innocent do not have to pay the price," said Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani - who recently visited the U.S. and pledged $11 million in funds supporting and helping victims of the September 11th attacks on Washington and New York - at the start of a ministerial OIC meeting seeking to forge a united stance on terrorism.
In a letter to the OIC, Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel said the regime wanted to find a negotiated solution to the crisis and remained ready for talks, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency reported.
The report said the letter also drew attention to the need for international efforts to resolve the issues of the fate of the Palestinian people and the status of Jerusalem.
The attack on Afghanistan is an attack on the entire Muslim world because the Americans have called it a "crusade", the letter said.
Speaking on behalf of the OIC's 57 foreign ministers gathered in Qatar, Sheikh Hamad underlined the "need to provide concrete proof of the blame of presumed perpetrators."
Washington warned the United Nations on Monday that its war on terrorism might extend beyond the borders of Afghanistan.
Many OIC member states, however, are reluctant to sanction strikes on fellow Muslim or Arab countries.
"Launching strikes against any Arab country under any pretence would lead to severe complications," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told Egyptian radio as the league's foreign ministers gathered.
Moussa said the Arab position would be "fierce" if Arab countries were attacked within the context of the ongoing campaign.
The foreign ministers of the OIC said in a joint statement that they "rejected that any Islamic or Arab country is attacked under the pretext of the fight against terrorism."
"We could never accept strikes against any Arab country, particularly since the accusations made by the United States focused on specific camps, which have been linked to what happened in New York and Washington," he said.
Iraq, a sworn enemy of the United States since the 1991 Gulf War, has been suggested as a potential target for more U.S.-led strikes.
"The U.N. should be the pivot of the fight against terrorism," Moussa added at the end of informal consultations among the ministers of the 22-member League.
Asked about the League's response to the military strikes on Afghanistan, Moussa said they "should be limited to what they [the Americans] consider to be military bases" and should "spare civilians."
The OIC did not condemn the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan, but instead expressed "concern that they could cause victims among innocent civilians."
Thus far more than 80 civilians have been killed in the strikes on Afghanistan, including women and children.
OIC members, including Iran, Pakistan and Oman, called for the meeting on the attacks, which Tehran said had been exploited as a pretext to reinforce anti-Muslim sentiment in the West.
The Qatari leader also announced that his country would donate $10 million to an Islamic fund for the Afghan people.
The anti-terror fight must be "carried out under the aegis of the United Nations," he said, stressing that the agreement must "define terrorism and differentiate between this phenomenon and the fight of peoples against occupation."
Sheikh Hamad also called on the United Nations to convene an anti-terror conference "to draw up an international agreement with an aim of fighting against terrorism, which affects all its member states."
He stressed that the agreement must "define terrorism and differentiate between this phenomenon and the fight of peoples against occupation."
He also blasted the "state terrorism carried out by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people and its attempts to aggravate the situation in the region by exploiting [anti-U.S. attacks] to create new realities in the Middle East."
"State terrorism gives birth to terrorism by organizations and there is no other choice but to break this vicious circle by giving the Palestinian people their legitimate rights."
Washington must "assume its responsibilities by ensuring the necessary international protection for the unarmed Palestinian people with a view to resuming the [Israeli-Palestinian] peace process," he said.
He described U.S. President George W. Bush's implicit support for a Palestinian state as a "very important positive step."
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, for his part, "strongly condemned the criminal acts that killed innocent people in Washington and New York," expressing "his sincere solidarity with President Bush and the American people.
"We announce that all our resources, as limited as they might be, are at the disposal of the world's states, the international community and the United Nations to protect the international community from blind global terrorism, which threatens peace and coexistence between peoples," he said.
Praising Bush's support for a Palestinian state, Arafat said, "The establishment of the Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, is essential for peace, security and stability in the Middle East region."
In his endorsement of a Palestinian state last week, Bush did not specify where the capital should be. Israel, which captured the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it, claims the entire city as its eternal and undivided capital.
The Palestinians want illegally occupied Arab East Jerusalem - which includes Islamic holy places - as the capital of an independent Palestinian state comprised of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In a message to OIC foreign ministers, Morocco's King Mohammad VI cautioned that the U.S. should not seek revenge as opposed to justice saying, the "fight against terrorism must be undertaken with a scrupulous desire to do right, conforming to international law to avoid fallout that could follow an action borne solely of revenge."
"The battle against terrorism must be a global one, combining the automatic condemnation of this phenomenon to tangible action to eradicate its roots and causes, as well as the search for its authors and the imperative of avoiding punishment of innocent civilians," the Moroccan monarch said.
The king, in a speech read out by his foreign minister, also stressed that the outrages in the United States, while horrible, should not hide the suffering of the Palestinian people at Israeli hands.
He called on the international community to "fully assume its responsibilities" towards the Palestinians to enable a "resumption of the peace process with no preconditions."
He added that the implicit support for a Palestinian state offered by Bush had opened "horizons of hope and confidence" in the Middle East.
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