JEDDAH, 3 December 2005 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will lay the foundation stone for the permanent headquarters of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) here on Wednesday.
Ambassador Atta Al-Mannan Habeeb, spokesman of the OIC, said the new building, located close to the Islamic Development Bank, would be financed by the Saudi government.
King Abdullah arrived in Jeddah yesterday to oversee preparations for the extraordinary Islamic summit in Makkah on Dec. 7-8. He was accompanied by senior princes and officials, including Prince Miteb, minister of municipal and rural affairs, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal and Prince Muqrin, chief of intelligence.
Habeeb said heads of state from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Maldives, Senegal and Sudan had confirmed their participation in the summit.
Saudi authorities have tightened security in and around Makkah ahead of the conference. Rooms and suites have been booked in five-star hotels for the guests.
King Abdullah called the summit following last year’s Haj to review the current state of the Ummah and to explore strategies that would enable the Muslim world to face up to the challenges of the 21st century.
OIC foreign ministers will hold a meeting on Tuesday to prepare the summit’s agenda and draft resolutions.
The first Islamic summit after the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces, the Makkah conference will discuss the situation in the violence-torn country. OIC Secretary-General Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said leaders of countries neighboring Iraq would meet on the sidelines of the summit.
Ihsanoglu expects a large number of Muslim leaders to attend the two-day conference, responding to the call of King Abdullah Turkish President Ahmet Sezer and Prime Minister Recep Erdogan will not attend due to prior engagements, Ihsanoglu said. The Turkish delegation will be led by Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc and will include Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. According to press reports, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is likely to attend the summit following the amnesty announced by King Abdullah to five Libyans who were accused of plotting to assassinate him two years ago. Ihsanoglu declined to confirm the reports, but said Libya would send a highlevel delegation.
“The relations between the two countries are improving continuously and the good intentions on both sides are enough to overcome all sensitivities,” he said about Saudi-Libyan ties.
This is the second time Makkah is hosting an Islamic summit. The first was held in 1981 during the rule of King Khaled.
The extraordinary summit comes after a meeting of intellectuals and scholars in Makkah in September, which helped formulate a new vision for the OIC and set the agenda for the summit. It also called for restructuring the OIC.
The intellectuals urged Muslim leaders to discuss topics such as Islamic solidarity and joint Islamic action, creation of a poverty fund, institutionalization of Islamic good governance, conflict prevention and confidence-building, terrorism, dialogue and civilization, Islamophobia, political and human rights of Muslim minorities in non-OIC countries.
