THE resounding success of the extraordinary session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), held in Islamabad, has galvanized hopes among Muslim Ummah about relevance of the platform and its potential to play an important role on issues of interest and concern to the Muslim world.
The outcome of the conference of the Foreign Ministers, commitments made by member states and sentiments expressed by the delegates offer hopes for resurgence of the organization that remained somewhat dormant for a long time despite the fact that the Muslim world was at the receiving end due to false propaganda and discriminatory international order.
There is universal acknowledgement that Afghanistan was at the verge of virtual economic collapse and the decisions of the conference would go a long way in mitigating sufferings of the Afghan people and also sensitizing other members of the global community to discard its wait and see approach and act quickly to avoid the impending disaster.
The proceedings of the conference and the understanding reached bears testimony to the fact that the will to provide meaningful assistance to one of the members of the OIC was already there and it only needed a fillip to channelize it in an effective manner.
In this backdrop, credit surely goes to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for convening the session and Pakistan for successfully hosting the moot.
KSA has long been taking keen interest in Afghan affairs and based on its own understanding of the situation, it has, appreciably, pledged significant assistance worth one billion Riyals and hopefully this would persuade other donors to follow the suit in view of the precarious humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.
The delegates, which represented individual states and regional and international organizations, now have a better understanding and clearer picture of the ground situation in Afghanistan and it is expected that they would help mobilize support for the noble cause of humanitarian assistance on their return to their countries and institutions.
The conference also afforded an opportunity to the Pakistani leadership to interact closely with representatives of different countries and organizations for an in-depth exchange of views not just on the Afghan situation and its possible fall-out but also other issues of regional and global interest.
During these meetings, Prime Minister Imran Khan rightly stressed the need for tackling problems confronting the Muslim Ummah both individually and collectively.
We hope that the OIC Secretariat as well as diplomatically active members of the organization would take forward the momentum built at Islamabad to contribute meaningfully to help the war-torn Afghanistan stand on its own feet besides other issues of interest to the Islamic world like Islamophobia.
