Iran Views OIC Role as Significant in Safeguarding Islamic Values

Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stressed that the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) plays a crucial role in preserving and safeguarding the values of more than a billion Muslims living across the world. Speaking during a joint press conference with OIC Secretary General Ekmeloddin Ihsanoglou here on Wednesday, Mottaki praised what he described as the precious steps of the OIC Secretary General in promoting the status and activities of the Organization.

He noted Ihsanoglou’s meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday, and said that during the meeting, the two sides had good discussions about stronger and more frequent role-playing by the OIC and its secretary general.

The Iranian top diplomat further pointed to the measures taken in the last one year for revising the OIC’s articles of association and said that a draft OIC charter is due to be studied at a meeting of the OIC’s senior experts next week as well as a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Islamic countries to be held in Islamabad next month.

Stressing OIC’s crucial role in preserving and safeguarding the values of more than one billion Muslims living across the world, he lauded Ihsanoglou’s innovations in encountering anti-Islam efforts or Islamophobia and other issues of the world of Islam, including Palestine and Beitolmoghaddas.

The Iranian foreign minister also appreciated the OIC and its secretary general for supporting Iran’s logical stances concerning access to peaceful nuclear technology, and added that both he and president Ahmadinejad have demanded Ihsanoglou to present and pursue any kind of idea or innovation that he might have for removing the possible concerns of regional countries about activity of Iran’s nuclear power plant in the southern province of Bushehr.

Elsewhere, he pointed to the upcoming meeting on Iraq, and reminded Iran’s support for the arrangement of a ministerial meeting of Iraq’s neighboring states plus Egypt and Bahrain, and added, “According to previous ratifications, this meeting was decided to be held in Iraq and we believe that agreement on the location of the meeting is attainable.”

“From our point of view, the meeting of Iraq’s neighbors should be prioritized at present,” Mottaki concluded.