ISLAMIC WORLD LEADERS SNUB TRUMP
OIC in a statement issue recently said Jerusalem move marks US withdrawal from the Middle East peace process and recognized East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestinian. Islamic leaders urged the international community to recognise occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas has warned the United States that the country no longer had any role to play in the peace process. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan convened in Istanbul an emergency summit of the world’s main pan-Islamic body, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), seeking a tough response to the recognition by US President Donald Trump of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. With the Islamic world itself mired in division, the summit fell well short of agreeing any concrete sanction against Israel or the United States. But their final statement said leaders, ministers and officials from more than 50 Muslim countries “declare East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine, and invite all countries to recognize the State of Palestine and East Jerusalem as its occupied capital.”
PALESTINE TO REMAIN TOP PRIORITY: MUSLIM WORLD
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said on 21 December that the Palestine will remain the key issue of the Muslim world forever. In a statement issued on 21 December, Ghasemi lashed out at Bahrain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, for calling al-Quds a “side issue”, saying the Bahraini foreign minister makes such remarks to please the American and Zionist rulers. “It is so regrettable that an Arab and Muslim country refers to a seven-decade-old wound on the injured body of Muslim world as a ‘side issue’, and is still unable to understand the most simple issues of the world in such an unwise way,” Ghasemi noted. Ghasemi also said that such cheap and groundless remarks would just destroy and tarnish the reputation and image of Bahrain and its people at the global level.
DECLARE EAST JERUSALEM AS THE CAPITAL OF PALESTINE: MUSLIM WORLD LEADERS
More than 50 Muslim countries in a bid to counter Donald Trump’s decision to recognise the Jerusalem as the capital of Israel demanded that East Jerusalem must be recognised by the international community as the capital of an independent Palestinian state. A draft declaration from an extraordinary Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting was distributed to media persons and reporters on 13 December. However, The Trump administration’s move is null and void and means that the US can no longer act as an “unbiased” sponsor in Middle East peace talks, it read. The 57-member strong body met in Istanbul to drive out a unified response from the Muslim world to last week’s unprecedented move from the US.
US MUST IMMEDIATELY SCRAP JERUSALEM DECISION: ERDOGAN
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 21 December asked US President Donald Trump to reverse his decision following a UN vote overwhelming rejected his decision. Earlier the president of Turkey had called on the members of the United Nations not to be swayed by Trump’s threat to cut aid for countries backing the motion at the UN General Assembly. “We welcome with great pleasure the UN General Assembly’s overwhelming support… We expect the Trump administration to rescind without further delay its unfortunate decision, whose illegality has been clearly established,” Erdogan said on Twitter. “I am calling on the whole world: never sell your democratic will in return for petty dollars,” he had said in a televised speech in Ankara before the vote. The US decision on December 6 broke with international consensus and unleashed protests across the Muslim world. At an emergency session Thursday, the UN General Assembly adopted the motion rejecting Trump’s decision by 128 votes to nine, with 35 abstentions.
TURKEY WELCOMES UN’S DECISION ON US MOVE
Turkey’s parliament on 21 December welcomed the UN General Assembly’s outright rejection of a U.S. decision on Jerusalem’s status. Deputy parliament speaker, Ahmet Aydin announced the UN’s resolution to lawmakers during the 2018 budget debate. Aydin hailed the UN decision on the U.S. move as “a historic step”. He further said that the decision shows us that all states were equal. The decision is very important for forming the world order. “We have seen one more time that the world is bigger than five,” said Aydin, a reference to the UN Security Council’s five permanent members. Aydin recalled that Turkey’s parliament had issued a joint declaration on Dec. 6 against the U.S. move recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. “I thank all parties for their strong stance against this issue,” he said. The full 193-member UN General Assembly met for a rare emergency special session regarding U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision. Unlike at the Security Council, the U.S. has no veto power in the assembly. A total of 128 members voted in favor of the resolution, nine countries voted against and 35 others abstained.
IN ONE MONTH, 6,700 ROHINGYA REFIGEES WERE KILLED
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the international NGO best-known for its medical support in troubled areas has claimed that at least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in Myanmar between August 25 and September 24 after violence broke out in Rakhine. Based on surveys in refugee camps in Bangladesh, the MSF said in a report that gunshots were the leading cause of deaths. Many were burnt inside their homes and others beaten to death. Among the dead were 730 children below the age of five years, according to the MSF report. The latest crisis in Rakhine broke out in August after Rohingya militants attacked a security post. The Myanmar army launched a “security crackdown” which led to the deaths and displacement of Rohingya Muslims. Since then, more than 626,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar to the neighbouring Bangladesh. “We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh. What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured. The peak in deaths coincides with the launch of the latest ‘clearance operations’ by Myanmar security forces in the last week of August,” said Dr. Sidney Wong, MSF Medical Director. Among the dead were 730 children below age of five years
ISLAMIC WORLD AIMS TO UNITE UNDER TURKEY’S LEADERSHIP
A Turkish lawmaker said on 22 December said that Muslim world will unite under the leadership of Turkey. Talking to Anadolu Agency, Orhan Atalay, a lawmaker of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party asked international community to ies to recognize East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital. Atalay welcomed the decision by Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. “The decision by 57 countries recognizes the independent Palestine state,” said Atalay. The OIC summit and its declaration came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate Washington’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The OIC is the second-largest inter-governmental body after the United Nations, with its 57 member states spread over four continents. Atalay said that Turkey has the ability to unite the Muslim countries.
He further said: “If Saudi Arabia would hold Turkey’s one hand and Iran the other, the Islamic world will unite under the leadership of Turkey soon.”