OIC summit backs Palestine cause

OIC summit backs Palestine cause
REUTERS

DOHA, NOV 12: Iranian President Mohammad Khatamion on Sunday opened an Islamic summit with a call for full support of a Palestinian uprising against Israel, which he described as a "terrorist racist Zionist regime".

Leaders of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims began their ninth summit in Qatar with verses from the Koran and a minute of silence in memory of nearly 200 Palestinians killed in seven weeks of clashes with Israeli troops.

"We take pride in the heroic resistance of the children of the Muslim and Arab Ummah (nation) against suppression and bullying by the terrorist racist regime," said Khatami, the outgoing chairman of the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Khatami also told the summit that Islamic countries had so far failed to meet the aspirations of the Palestinians.

"Astonishingly, while the nation of Palestine, especially its youth and children, has emerged triumphant...Islamic countries have yet to meet the expectations of the Islamic nation," Khatami said.

The Iranian leader's speech did not repeat his call on the summit on Saturday for severing ties with Israel. He also did not mention by name the United States, regularly denounced by Tehran as "leader of world arrogance".

But Iranian delegates said Khatami appeared satisfied with a compromise draft resolution that is expected to demand the breaking of links with Israel for killings of Palestinians seen as amounting to war crimes.

Delegates said moderates led by Egypt and Turkey had prevailed in drafting the summit's resolution, toning down criticism of Washington and approving compromise wording that kept up the anti-Israel rhetoric but left members free to decide their future ties.

The draft resolution to be approved by the OIC, the Muslim world's biggest group, said, "The leaders invite member states, which had established relations with Israel or were taking steps towards ties with Israel within the framework of the peace process, to cut these ties...and stop all forms of normalisation until it complies accurately and honestly with UN resolutions dealing with Palestine and holy Jerusalem.

"The leaders...also urge the US administration to revise its biased stance which obstructs the Security Council from shouldering its responsibilities, representing a dangerous violation of the UN Charter," it said.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said in his speech to the summit that there could be no peace in the Middle East without a full Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands.

"We must tell the whole world that there is no solution to the struggle except through an Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab land in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Israel must choose between the possibility of living inpeace in the region or the continuation of this struggle for decades," Sheikh Hamad said.

OIC leaders also supported Palestinian and Arab calls for the formation of a UN peacekeeping force to protect Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

At least 205 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the current wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The draft also reaffirmed OIC support for an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, rejecting a US Senate vote last month that recognised Israeli claims to the city as a "flagrant challenge to the feelings of the world's Muslims and Christians."

It said OIC leaders "affirm their determination to cut ties with any country that moves its embassy to Jerusalem or recognises it as the capital of Israel".