ISLAMABAD, 22 August 2006 — Muslim nations will meet in Pakistan in November to discuss the plight of nine million refugees in the Islamic world, including thousands from the Middle East conflict, officials said yesterday.
The conference of ministers from the 57-state Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the world’s largest grouping of Muslim countries, is being coordinated with the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, they said.
“Protection of refugees and the institution of asylum both have a long and very positive tradition in the Islamic world,” UNHCR spokeswoman Fatma Bassiouni told AFP.
“The OIC conference in November will provide an opportunity to strengthen our cooperation in addressing refugee issues; to seek solutions to protracted refugee situations; to emphasize the asylum traditions and highlight the contributions that Islamic countries have made in sharing much of the refugee and displacement burden in today’s world.” she added.
At the conference scheduled for Nov. 27-29 the ministers will deliberate on a so-called “Islamabad Declaration” which would be the first ever document to set out the OIC’s position on refugees in the Islamic world.
Similar documents have been adopted by African and Latin American nations, forming key planks of the international legal framework on displaced people, but never before by the OIC.
Countries belonging to the OIC are host to an estimated 9.4 million of the 20.8 million refugees and others of concern to UNHCR worldwide, the UN said. The figure excludes Palestinian refugees.
Included in the UN’s figure are the millions of Afghan refugees who fled to Pakistan and Iran over the past quarter-century of conflict.
