Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (left), Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi (centre) and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr attend the second day of the OIC summit in Cairo, on Thursday (Reuters photo)

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) 57 member states called for supporting the Kingdom and other neighbouring countries in providing shelter for Syrian refugees, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The Muslim nations also commended Jordan’s efforts in safeguarding Islamic and Christian sites in Jerusalem.

Deputising for His Majesty King Abdullah at the summit, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said “the world unanimously agrees on the illegality and illegitimacy of Israeli settlements, as they threaten a geographically viable Palestinian state”.

“Settlement expansion in the West Bank, and especially in East Jerusalem, is diminishing the chances for peace,” Ensour, who returned to Jordan later on Thursday, said at an OIC session on Israeli settlements, according to Petra.

Muslim leaders at the 57-member OIC summit also called for “serious dialogue” between Syria’s government and an opposition coalition on a political transition to end nearly two years of civil war, but pinned most of the blame for the bloodshed on the state, Reuters reported.

The two-day summit backed an initiative by Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia to broker negotiations to stop the fighting in which at least 60,000 people have died.

“We all agreed on the necessity to intensify work to put an end to the tragedies which the brotherly Syrian people are living through,” Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi told the closing ceremony.

The final communiqué, issued hours after the summit ended because of last-minute wrangling over the wording, said President Bashar Assad’s government was most to blame, Reuters reported.

“We stress that the primary responsibility is on the Syrian government for the continuation of violence and destruction of property, and we express our deep concern at the deterioration of conditions and the spread of killings that led to the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the Syrian authorities’ commission of massacres in cities and villages,” it said.

The statement made no mention of Assad but called for talks between the opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) and “representatives of the Syrian government who are committed to the political transformation of Syria and those who have not been involved directly in any form of oppression”.

It also urged all other opposition groups to join the SNC.

SNC leader Mouaz Al Khatib made a surprise offer last weekend for talks with Assad’s ceremonial deputy, Farouk Sharaa, on a transition that would guarantee Assad safe passage into exile.

The presidents of Egypt, Turkey and Iran met on the margins of the summit to discuss ways to support this initiative. Morsi said more details of their plan would be announced within days.

The secretary general of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, said the initiative “focuses on the unity of the Syrian lands, comprehensive dialogue between Syrian factions and responding to any country that wants to join in this dialogue”.

Syria was not represented at the summit after it was suspended from the OIC last August, nor was the Syrian opposition present.

Iran is one of Assad’s last allies and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, making the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian leader since 1979, played a mediator role. The Iranians registered reservations about the communiqué, OIC officials said.

There has been no official response from Damascus to Khatib’s offer, but fighting has intensified on the ground after a relative lull.

Many of the Islamic heads of state and government left Cairo on Wednesday after the first day of the summit, leaving their foreign ministers and diplomats to haggle over the communiqué.

In an interview with the BBC Arabic service, Khatib said the Syrian government had until Sunday to release all women detainees, otherwise he would regard his offer for dialogue as having been rejected by Assad.

He also said the Damascus government was letting Iran make decisions for it and rejecting his proposal for dialogue with Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has served as foreign minister but is not a member of Assad’s Alawite-dominated inner circle of power.

http://jordantimes.com/muslim-nations-praise-jordans-support-for-syrians-jerusalem