LEADER of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif on Friday criticized Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s remarks about the Saudi Arabia-led Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), calling them “highly unfortunate and irresponsible”. In a tweet, he said the statement flies in the face of history of our special and trusted relationship with the Kingdom adding that the cavalier attitude of the government is undermining Pakistan’s core relations with friendly countries.
In an interview, the Foreign Minister, apparently departing from diplomatic norms, publicly aired grievances against the OIC urging it to stop dilly-dallying on the convening of a meeting of its Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) on Kashmir warning that if OIC fails to summon the CFM meeting, Pakistan would be ready to go for a session outside OIC. Pakistan is one of the founding members of the OIC and has all along enjoyed close and cordial ties with the entity that is supposed to look after interests of Muslim Ummah. People of Pakistan are grateful to the OIC for extending its all out support on most issues of its concern especially Kashmir on which the organization has a Contact Group that has been instrumental in projecting the cause of people of Kashmir. As Pakistan has sincerely been supporting and advocating the causes of Muslim Ummah and member states of OIC even at the cost of its own political and economic interests, therefore, it rightly expected that the organization would convene a special meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the member countries to convey a strong message of support and solidarity to Kashmiris and disapproval of illegal annexation of the territory by India. However, maturity demanded that concerns about inability of the OIC to do so, may be under influence of some countries, should have been conveyed through diplomatic channels. It was also time for Pakistan to go deep into its own policies and strategies to pinpoint failures and how to regain the last ground. There is dire need to strengthen and empower OIC and avoid making it controversial. Therefore, we earnestly hope that damage-control measures would be initiated on war-footings to smoothen our ties with the OIC and the Kingdom.
