As the Senior Officials Meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation starts in Jeddah on Feb 9 (Sunday) to make preparations for the OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers, a diplomatic source said on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia has shown reluctance to accept Pakistan’s request for an immediate meeting of the CFM on Kashmir.
Pakistan has been pushing for the foreign ministers’ meeting of the 57-member bloc of Muslim countries, since India annexed occupied Kashmir last August. Although since then there has been a meeting of the contact group on Kashmir on the sidelines of UN General Assembly session in New York and a report by the OIC’s Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission on the rights abuses in India-held Kashmir, no progress could be made towards the CFM’s meeting. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, while underscoring the importance of CFM for Pakistan at a recent presser, said it was needed to send a clear message from Ummah on the Kashmir issue.
Is the Ummah divided?
The OIC, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which the 57 member bloc consisting of only Muslim countries has been silent on the Kashmir issue. Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has also made his displeasure clear with the OIC. He said, “The reason is that we have no voice and there is a total division amongst [us]. We can’t even come together as a whole on the OIC meeting on Kashmir’. What does the reluctance to hold the meeting says about the Muslim Ummah? Is the collective Ummah only interested in helping fellow brothers when it’s to their gain? Why is the plight of Kashmiri people not enough for everyone to come sit down on the table and help them out?