Pakistani PM Urges Organization of Islamic Cooperation To Join Non-Partisan Nations To Mediate Conflict in Ukraine

March 22, 2022 (EIRNS)—In opening the annual foreign ministers meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Islamabad, Pakistan today, host Prime Minister Imran Khan warned that the world is heading in the wrong direction, back into a Cold War, a world divided into blocs in which the 1.5 billion people in the Islamic countries will have no place. He urged the foreign ministers of the OIC’s 57 member states to think about how it could help mediate to bring about a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, and announced that he would be meeting shortly with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who attended at the conference, to discuss how the OIC and China can intervene to try and stop this conflict, which is creating such great consequences for all nations as the increasing prices of oil, gas, and wheat.

All non-partisan countries are in a special position to do something, and we must do so, he told the ministers.

Khan also addressed the need for the OIC to help stabilize Afghanistan. That nation is finally free of conflict after 40 years, but it faces economic sanctions and non-recognition. The only way to stop international terrorism is to stabilize Afghanistan, Khan emphasized. But, he cautioned, do not dictate to the Afghan people; anyone who knows the Afghan character knows they do not accept this. Let us help them and get them into the international community.

Before raising those specific strategic points, Khan spoke about the greatness of Islam’s teaching and history, in such areas as its emphasis on the quest for knowledge, from birth to grave, a teaching which led to Muslims being the greatest scientists in the world for centuries. Likewise, its teaching of mercy, that governments must look after the weak and the poor, and the need for equality before the law for “great crooks,” as well as poor ones—a principle violated today, he said, as in such shocking facts that every year $1.6 trillion leave the poor countries for the tax havens in the developed world, robbing poor countries of what they need to grow.