DURING his talks with Malaysian counterpart Mohamad, Prime Minister Imran Khan once again reaffirmed his support for Kuala Lumpur Process, the first summit of which was held last year but the PM Khan could not attend it due to the concerns expressed by some of our friendly countries who feared that it may divide the Muslim Ummah and undermine the OIC. However, the PM said on Tuesday that he would attend the next summit as the process is more aimed at unifying the Ummah.
The KL summit is a brainchild of Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad. The plan for the summit was finalized during a trilateral meeting involving Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia in September last year in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session. Therefore, Imran’s pulling out from the first summit meeting at the eleventh hour had surprised many but in background, we understand Pakistan put a lot of effort to address the concerns of the friendly countries about the KL Summit. In fact, ahead of the summit, the Malaysian PM himself had contacted the Saudi leadership to allay their apprehensions. Undoubtedly, Saudi Arabia is the most important country of Muslim world and Muslims all over the world look around it for the leadership role. Given the challenges faced by Muslim Ummah at this point in time including Palestine, Kashmir, Islamophobia, poverty, backwardness and so on, it is important that all the Muslim leaders speak with one voice from one platform. As PM Khan has agreed to attend the next KL summit, we expect that both Pakistan and Malaysia will also take on board both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to make them part of this process. Without them, we understand the summit will remain incomplete and inconclusive. We are also confident that the leadership of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be forthcoming. In fact the KL process could be used to firm up a concrete plan to make the OIC more vibrant and effective that truly represents the aspirations of Muslims around the world. The KL Process must also be used to build strong economic ties amongst the Muslim countries. We need to build a strong Muslim economic bloc. The first summit in fact took a very important decision regarding a common currency for the Muslim world. Though efforts will be made to thwart this idea but implementing it will be the first step towards achieving economic sovereignty.
