Peace among Muslim states 'easily achievable'

By Ali Abo Rezeg and Fatih Hafiz Mehmet

ANKARA

Peace between members of the Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is "easily achievable", according to commentators who spoke at an Ankara-hosted forum on Friday.

Held under the slogan "Achieving Peace and Security in a World of Turmoil", the forum was organized by the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Center for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), an Ankara-based subsidiary of the OIC.

The event attracted dozens of participants, including politicians, academics and university students.

One of the speakers, Ambassador Askar Mussinov, head of the OIC’s Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution Unit, discussed the OIC’s role in finding solutions to the challenges now facing the Muslim world.

Mussinov hailed SESRIC’s many research papers on peace and security, which, he said, "are of great value, as they include practical recommendations along with analysis".

He urged Muslim countries to promote their traditional values while also raising awareness on "how much Islamic civilization has contributed to the world".

"This way," he said, "we can also refute the many dangerous misperceptions about Islam."

Mussinov pointed to the forum itself as an example of "how cooperation and collaboration are easily achievable among OIC member-states".

Another speaker, Dr. Ahmet Uysal, president of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (an independent Ankara-based think-tank), stressed the peaceful nature of the Muslim faith.

"Islam is a religion of peace," he said, noting that the word "Islam" itself was closely related to the word for peace ("salaam") in Arabic.

Uysal went on to point out how Islamic traditions had served to build trust between Muslims and the adherents of other religions.

"In the past, especially during the Ottoman era, there was trust among different religious communities living inside the empire," he added.

According to Uysal, the Ottoman model should serve as an example of how trust might be maintained among the OIC’s current member-states.

When asked about mechanisms for promoting peace among OIC members, he said: "We must build a viable civil society in the region and empower marginalized groups suffering from unemployment and poverty."

"We must also encourage national dialogue and trust between states of the region," he added. "Democratic values and the rule of law should also be heavily promoted."

Fadi Farasin, for his part, a SESRIC researcher, noted that "almost sixty percent" of the world’s ongoing conflicts seemed to involve OIC member-states.

"Conflicts are becoming increasingly frequent in the Muslim world, most of which are largely internal in nature," he said.

These internal conflicts, Farasin added, "are often characterized by popular opposition to the political, economic or ideological policies of the states involved".

"Today, almost 76 percent of all terrorist incidents [worldwide] take place in OIC member-states," he lamented. "This is a tragedy."

What’s more, Farasin said, millions of people worldwide had become the victims of displacement.

"Today," he asserted, "almost two thirds of the world's refugee population hail from OIC countries."

He added: "Not only are OIC member-states the main source of refugees, but they also host vast numbers of refugees themselves."