Dhaka, December 10, 2005

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim,

Ladies and gentlemen of the media,

Assalamulaikum

I welcome you to this press briefing

I had briefed you on our departure for the Third OIC Extraordinary Summit on our expectations of the Summit. Let me take this opportunity to brief you on the outcome.

The Third Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit Conference was held in Makkah Al Mukarramah on 07-08 December 2005 with the participation of all the Member States of the OIC.

The initiative to convene the Extraordinary Summit was taken by the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia. The primary objective of convening this Extraordinary Summit was to review the current difficult situation faced by the Muslim Ummah and to chart out a Programme of Action to meet the challenges. The Summit was preceded by a Preparatory Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the OIC, which was held in Jeddah on 06 December 2005.

The Summit adopted a Ten-Year Programme of Action, which contained a set of recommendations based on the outcome of the Forum of Muslim Scholars and Intellectuals, which was held in Makkah from 09-11 September 2005 as well as that of Commission of the Eminent Persons. The Programme of Action focused on many important and sensitive issues under two broad categories namely Intellectual and Political Issues and Development Socio-Economic and Scientific Issues. The Summit also adopted the Makkah Declaration and the Final Communiqué.

The Hon'ble Prime Minister delivered her statement on the first day of the Summit on 07 December 2005. The Hon'ble Prime Minister in her statement, emphasized on strengthening Islamic Solidarity and adoption of a unified stand to face the common threat. The Hon'ble Prime Minister particularly mentioned about maintaining a principled stand for a comprehensive solution of the Palestinian question in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions, the Arab Peace Plan and the Road Map. The Hon'ble Prime Minister stressed on the importance of the on-going initiative of instituting a Programme of Capacity Building for Poverty Alleviation in the Least Developed and Low-income Member States. She also underlined the importance of expansion of intra-OIC Trade and supported the target of intra-OIC trade reaching 20% by 2015.

The issue of terrorism was deliberated extensively at the Summit. The Hon'ble Prime Minister in her intervention underscored Bangladesh's firm position on terrorism and urged the OIC to clearly condemn all acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and to take concrete measures in this regard. She underscored the need to establish a multi-lingual OIC electronic media to reach out to peoples across the world in an effort to fight against the alarming phenomena of Islamophobia.

The Hon'ble Prime Minister also spoke about the necessity of dialogue among civilizations, giving priority to allocating adequate resources for enhancing the capacity of the existing Centres of Excellence and establishing new ones for human resources development.

In this regard, she recalled the vision of Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman of an Islamic World with developed centres of excellence. Such a dream was realized through the establishment of today's Islamic University of Technology in Bangladesh, a shining example of a Centre of Excellence in the Muslim World, she said. The Hon'ble Prime Minister in her interventions had underscored the need to empower the huge human resource of the Ummah through education in engineering and technology. In this context she urged upon the leaders for their support in further developing the Islamic University of Technology (IUT), a subsidiary organ of the OIC and an institution of excellence. The Summit endorsed the proposal to further strengthen this institution by increasing funding and expansion of resources.

The Hon'ble Prime Minister had several bilateral meetings with the leaders including Sultan of Brunei, the President of Iran, President of Pakistan and Prime Minister of Palestine, on the sidelines of the Summit. She also had discussions with His Majesty King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during course of the Summit. The discussions centered on matters of mutual interest and cooperation. The ways and means of further strengthening the brotherhood among the Muslim Ummah also featured prominently in the bilateral meetings.

One of the most important aspects of the Summit was the absolute unanimity of the leaders to take a united stand against those individuals and groups who were engaged in tarnishing the image of Islam in the name of religion and on the need to reform the organization. A major outcome of the Extraordinary Summit was that the entire Islamic Ummah were unanimous in expressing their outrage at the acts of the few who have hijacked the true image of Islam, the path of peace and goodness, to give it a bad name. All the leaders have strongly condemned the acts of violence and terror that are being carried out by this group of misguided few in the name of Islam. The leaders have expressed their firm resolve to unitedly confront this group and to put an end to their efforts at defamation of Islam. This was reflected in the preambular paragraph of the final commnique which reads:

"The Summit reaffirmed that Islam is a religion of moderation which rejects bigotry, extremism and fanaticism, and underlined in this connection the importance of combating deviant ideology using all available means, besides developing educational curricula that firmly establish the values of understanding, tolerance, dialogue and multilateralism in accordance with the tenets of Islam."

The Summit endorsed the proposal to set up an International Centre for Counter Terrorism which would serve as a network in tracking down those elements involved in acts of terror. Emphasis was laid on empowerment of the under-privileged through proper education and social development to prevent exploitation and brainwashing of the poor youth by giving them the wrong ideas of Islam such as gaining martyrdom through suicide bombings. The Hon'ble Prime Minister's decision to project the actual teachings of Islam and promote tolerance through the Imams of mosques in Bangladesh was greatly appreciated at the summit.

The leaders of the Islamic countries urged that political leaders, academicians and civil society must be together in the fight against terrorism. I would like to highlight here the relevant paragraph of the Makkah Declaration which underscores the point:

"While we affirm, in this regard, that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is a global phenomenon that is not confined to any particular religion, race, color, or country, and that can in no way be justified or rationalized, we are determined-with Almighty Allah's help and grace--to develop our national laws and legislations to criminalize every single terrorist practice and every single practice leading to the financing or instigation of terrorism. Similarly, we are also called upon to redouble and orchestrate international efforts to combat terrorism, including the establishment of an International Counter-Terrorism Center as endorsed by the Riyadh International Conference on Combating Terrorism."

"Even so, all the governments and peoples of the Ummah are unanimous in their conviction that reform and development are the priority to which all efforts should be channeled within a framework that is intimately molded in our Islamic social make-up. At the same time this framework needs to remain in harmony with the achievements of human civilization and steeped in the principles of consultation, justice, and equality in its drive to achieve good governance, widen political participation, establish the rule of law, protect human rights, apply social justice, transparency, and accountability, fight corruption, and build civil society institutions."

I most certainly hope that the political leaders and others will take the message contained in the Makkah Declaration and come together in meeting the challenge that our nation is faced with today. We have to leave out politics and respond to the call of the hour.

The Bangladesh delegation actively participated in the Preparatory Meeting of the Foreign Ministers and made a number of interventions on different issues including Islamic solidarity, reform of the OIC, terrorism, human rights, poverty alleviation, higher education and increase in intra-OIC trade etc. Bangladesh took the initiative in having a special entry in the Ten-Year Programme of Action calling upon the Member States of the OIC to extend enhanced support to the Islamic University of Technology in Bangladesh enabling it to contribute more towards capacity building of the Member States through human resources development.

I thank you all.