President Rouhani: Muslims Hold High Expectations of OIC
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Muslim nations have high expectations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), stressing that the main function of the Islamic body should be to curb violence against Muslim people.
“Today, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s primary task is to safeguard the lives of Muslims, to prevent violence against them and (prevent) their killing,” President Rouhani said in a meeting with OIC Secretary General Iyad Amin Madani here in Tehran on Wednesday.
The president also touched on the ongoing plots hatched by the adversaries to portray Islam as the religion of violence, and called on the OIC to strive to correct that flawed image of the divine religion.
“The enemies of Islam are spreading Islamophobia, while the extremists in practice fulfill their objectives,” he warned.
Rouhani further emphasized the necessity for unity among the Muslim nations, a prerequisite of which he said is respect for the Islamic beliefs, and noted, “The Organization of Islamic Cooperation should convey the clear voice of the Islamic Ummah’s (community’s) unity to the whole people, and avert insults to the Islamic Ummah’s beliefs.”
As regards the OIC’s other main responsibilities, the Iranian chief executive pointed to the efforts to “free the city of al-Quds and the Palestinian territories from the yoke of invaders," stressing that the issue of Palestine is one of the contributing factors in the unity of Muslims.
Madani, for his part, hailed as helpful the Iranian president’s views on the ways to settle the ongoing problems in the Islamic societies, and said, “We should take practical steps for the unity of the Islamic world and the proximity of the Islamic nations, and should expand dialogue among the Islamic governments and nations.”
The new secretary general of the OIC arrived in Tehran on Tuesday night for talks with high-ranking Iranian officials.
The OIC is the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations which has membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensuring to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world.
