The Fourth Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit Conference welcomed the speech of the Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdualziz in which he proposed to establish a centre for dialogue among Islamic schools of thought to reach a common understanding. The two-day (14-15 August 2012) Summit held in Makkah under the theme “Promotion of Islamic Solidarity” issued a final communiqué welcoming the centre is to be based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and its members appointed by the Islamic Summit Conference upon recommendation from the General Secretariat of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Council of Foreign Ministers.
Meanwhile, the Summit suspended the membership of Syria in the OIC. “In the absence of any tangible results on the implementation of the UN-Arab League envoy’s initiative to resolve the Syrian crisis, as well as the Arab initiative and the resolutions of the OIC Executive Committee, and due to the Syrian regime’s intransigence and persistent pursuit of a military solution to the crisis, the Conference decides to suspend the Syrian Arab Republic’s membership in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and all its subsidiary organs, specialized and affiliated institutions, pursuant to the outcome of the Executive Committee meeting held at ministerial level on 24 June 2012.”