On Thursday, September 21, 2023, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, on the sidelines of the seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly, the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation held the annual coordination meeting, headed by Mohamed Salem Ould Marzouk, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Mauritanians in External to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Chairman of the forty-ninth session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

He addressed the opening session, alongside the Secretary-General of the Organization, Mr. Hussein Ibrahim Taha, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of the Islamic Summit, and Khaled Al-Khayari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific at the United Nations, representing Secretary General of the Organization.

In his speech, the Secretary-General reviewed the political, security and development challenges taking place in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation region, most notably the repeated incidents of desecration and burning of copies of the Holy Qur’an in a number of European countries, which are acts that represent a manifestation of religious hatred in violation of international law, and developments in the Palestinian issue, Jammu and Kashmir, Afghanistan and the region. The Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Muslims in non-member states, and the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, calling for redoubling efforts and strengthening cooperation and solidarity to address them.

The Secretary-General also reviewed the organization’s most important activities in the humanitarian, social, economic, and legal issues on the organization’s agenda.

Source: International Islamic News Agency