RIYADH, 7 October — Muslim countries, whose foreign ministers start a two-day meeting in Qatar on Wednesday, will agree a unified anti-terror stand, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said in remarks published yesterday.
“Islamic countries will adopt a unified stand in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States,” he told Okaz newspaper.
Foreign ministers of the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) will discuss in Doha the crisis sparked by the terror attacks.
Prince Saud, who will lead the Saudi delegation, said the final communique of the meeting will express the Islamic world’s total rejection of terrorism and insist that “terrorism is against Muslims in the first place, because our countries have suffered from it.”
In Damascus, Prince Saud yesterday held talks with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on preparations for the Doha conference.
“The talks covered the outcome of contacts and consultations among the Islamic countries in preparation for the forthcoming OIC meeting,” a presidential spokesman said.
Muslim countries “will express their readiness and determination to contribute to fighting and uprooting terrorism because it is a danger against humanity,” Prince Saud said.
An OIC official said last week the chief diplomats of the OIC member states would discuss “the issue of terrorism” following the attacks in the US, attempts to “associate terrorism with Islam” and “the critical situation in the Palestinian territories.”
The ministers will also examine “the tragic situation of Afghan refugees and the consequences which US strikes on Afghanistan would have on the population” of the Muslim country, the official said.
The OIC has condemned the attacks as “anathema to all human conventions and values.”
