Speaker Highlights Major Role of Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani emphasized the importance of the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union (IIPU) in the Muslim world, stressing that the union can play a major role in pursuing the Muslim nations’ demands.
“After the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union is definitely the greatest organization that the world’s parliaments have established, enabling them to play a significant role in connecting the Islamic countries’ legislatures,” Larijani said in an address to the executive committee of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Member States in Tehran on Friday.
Explaining the importance of the IIPU, Larijani noted that 52 Islamic countries are now members of the union, and said it has close relations with 22 international institutions as well.
He also stressed that the IIPU can very well pursue the Muslim nations’ demands, because the parliaments in the Islamic countries have close ties with their nations.
However, the speaker said the fierce political vortexes that have engulfed certain Islamic countries hamper the Muslim nations’ demands, and described the divisive plots hatched by the outsiders as the primary cause of such debates.
“One of the main reasons that the Islamic Ummah’s (community’s) demands have not been satisfied is the heavy political vortexes, created in the wake of division within the Islamic Ummah,” Larijani explained.
The speaker further called on the IIPU to pursue its policies with “further power, prudence and patience” in the current conditions to counter the “waves of division” within the Muslim nations.
Pointing to the menace of the Takfiri (extremist) groups to the Islamic community, the Iranian speaker described the IIPU as an appropriate body for the Muslim country’s representatives to take a deeper look at the ongoing problems and prevent the “international opportunists” from sowing discord among Muslims.
He then expressed the hope that the forthcoming meeting of the IIPU in Tehran would convey clear messages to the Islamic community about “solidarity and rapport”, and that it could prepare the ground for the progress and development in the Muslim countries.
The ninth meeting of the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union will be officially launched in a ceremony on February 18, where Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to be the keynote speaker.