OIC Summit Adopts New Charter in Dakar

The Dakar based summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)- wrapped up on Friday, adopted a new charter and denounced in its final statement Israeli attack on Gaza and republishing the cartoons offending prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) and confirmed its support to the Arab initiative for solving the Lebanese crisis .
 
An official source- who asked for anonymity- in a delegation participating in the summit said to AFP:” The OIC new charter was adopted after last minute intensive consultations that allowed overcoming obstacles.
 
There were disagreements over some items in the new charter, including membership criteria, self-determination right, modernizing work mechanisms through introducing majority vote instead of consensus vote in addition to mechanisms of approving the new charter.
 
It was previously declared that in case no agreement reached, the new draft charter will be referred to the next June”s meeting of Islamic Foreign Ministers in Uganda.
 
In a related context, the OIC summit denounced, according to its final draft statement, the mounting Israeli military campaign against the Palestinian people in which Israel maintains through its occupation forces committing serious human rights violations and war crimes.
 
The statement called on the international community to practice pressure on the occupation force of Israel to immediately end its blockade and the mass punishment it imposes on the Palestinian people in Gaza Strip. The international community should exercise pressure on it to end the blockade and opening crossings.
 
The OIC summit called on the international community and the International Quartet Committee t immediately exert efforts to tackle the current political and humanitarian crisis and called also for exerting more efforts to support the peace process and resume bilateral talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.
 
The leaders voiced also their concern over the maintained disagreements between Palestinian political factions, underlining the need for an inter-Palestinian national dialogue to reach national reconciliation.
 
In Lebanese affairs, the OIC summit expressed its support to the Arab initiative for solving the political crisis in Lebanon and called for electing a new president on time and to accelerate founding International Court to try those responsible for assassinating former prime minister, Rafik Al-Hariri.
 
The final draft statement supported the Arab initiative and called on Lebanese political leaders to reach a consensus presidential candidate and to agree on forming a national unity government as soon as possible to prevent any possible repercussions and to avoid and presaging schisms.
 
The conference called for approving the International Court , after the approval of the International Security Council, to complete the necessary measures to reveal the truth behind the assassination of president Rafik Al-Hariri.
 
The summit called for securing all arrangements to help the court do its duty, away from any revenge or politicization, to ensure justice, protect the Lebanese and to beef up security in this Arab country.
 
Regarding the Iraqi issue, the conference called on all member states to reopen their embassies in Iraq and to accelerate measures required for establishing OIC liaison office in Baghdad .
 
On the other hand, the OIC summit participants condemned the Danish newspapers” unacceptable action of republishing cartoons offending prophet Mohamed in a flagrant abuse of the freedom of speech through offending the most sacred figure for more than 1.3 billion Muslims.
 
The summit called on Danish government to condemn this action of republishing the cartoons, holding accountable those who participated in this operation according to national laws that ban offending religious beliefs of the other and any provocative leaflets that may incite to violence and trouble in the society.
 
The conference also condemned strongly initiatives taken by some extremist politicians in European countries against building minarets in mosques and Dutch plans for producing a movie offending the Holy Quran.