President’s call to OIC for Afghan reconciliation

Saturday, August 18, 2012 - THE much-talked-about extraordinary summit of the OIC at the holy city of Makkah Mukarramah turned out to be just an exercise to de-seat one of its members. The summit decided with majority to suspend membership of Syria to send a message, as per OIC Secretary-General, to the international community that the Islamic community stands with a politically peaceful solution and does not want any more bloodshed. Understandably, this would be another major move to further isolate the beleaguered President Bashar al-Asad.

It is, however, satisfying that President Asif Ali Zardari took full advantage of the opportunity to put across Pakistan’s point of view on different issues both during bilateral meetings with heads of delegations and during proceedings of the summit itself. His call to the Islamic world to help Pakistan in its peace and reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan is timely and relevant as different initiatives are being undertaken by different stakeholders to resolve the issue as per their own strategies and visions. Concern of the Islamic world on Syrian issue is justified but Afghan situation also deserves urgent attention as the prolonged conflict is not only compounding agonies of the Afghan people but also sucking in Pakistan into more difficulties and challenges. Contrary to the propaganda being unleashed by some vested interests, Pakistan has an abiding interest in peace and stability in Afghanistan as it is badly affected by the unrest in the neighbouring country as pointed out by the President. We hope the President’s call would be followed up by the Foreign Office diplomatically with the member states of the OIC and convening of a special session of the OIC on Afghanistan would also be given serious thought to give fillip to efforts to restore peace there.