KUALA LUMPUR, 18 April 2004 — Malaysia has moved up the date of an emergency meeting of Muslim nations’ foreign ministers to discuss increasing violence in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, reports said yesterday.
Malaysia, which chairs the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), brought the meeting forward to April 22 from its planned May 4 date following a request of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Officials have said about 20 foreign ministers are expected to attend the talks held in the administrative capital of Putrajaya.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar announced the new meeting date in a statement released by the official Bernama news agency.
A similar meeting for members of the Non-Aligned Movement of developing countries, which Malaysia also chairs, is due to be held later.
Syed Hamid earlier said Malaysia saw the need for the emergency meeting after developments in the Middle East seemed to show that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was “trying to ignore” the Palestine-Israel roadmap for peace.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has expressed concern over the increasing violence in Iraq and said he was saddened by the number of civilian deaths in fighting between US-led coalition troops and members of the Sunni and Shiite communities.
OIC members last gathered in Malaysia in October 2003 for an international summit.
Badawi has written to President George W. Bush and key world leaders ahead of the OIC meeting.
“I’ve sent letters to President Bush and to leaders of the Permanent Five of the United Nations on the subject of Iraq,” Abdullah told reporters after a public function.
“I have also sent letters to President Bush and others that make up the Group of Four responsible for the Palestinian ‘roadmap’ or peace plan,” he added.
In the letter on Iraq, Abdullah expressed concern over the worsening security there and hoped nothing would jeopardize the plan by Iraq’s provincial authority to return full sovereignty of the state to its people, the Bernama news agency said.
Abdullah’s letter said it was time the international community gave serious consideration to allowing the United Nations a central role in Iraq. In the letter on Palestine, Abdullah stressed Malaysia’s wish to see a Palestinian state co-existing peacefully with a Jewish one as envisaged by the Middle East roadmap to peace.
