INDIA
Pakistan, one of the founder members of OIC, an influential grouping of 57 nation, had used all diplomatic efforts to deny India's entry as a special guest.
India pulled off yet another diplomatic coup of sorts over Pakistan on Friday when, invited as a "guest of honour" by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj urged the members to join hands in acting against terrorism, its perpetrators and those who shelter it.
"If we want to save humanity, we must tell the states who provide shelter and funding to terrorists to dismantle the infrastructure of the terrorist camps and stop providing funding shelter and funding to the terror organisations based in that country," said Swaraj, without naming Pakistan.
Pakistan, one of the founder members of OIC, an influential grouping of 57 nation, had used all diplomatic efforts to deny India's entry as a special guest. It even tried to pressure the OIC, albeit unsuccessfully, by skipping the Abu Dhabi event.
India has boycotted the event since 1969 when Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, a senior minister in Indira Gandhi's cabinet, invited to attend the Rabat conference was disinvited at Pakistan's instance after his arrival in the Moroccan capital. Since then, India has been routinely vilified on Kashmir at the OIC meetings.
"I carry the greetings of 1.3 billion Indians, including more than 185 million Muslim brothers and sisters. Our Muslims brothers and sisters are a microcosm of the diversity of India itself," said Swaraj stressing the huge population of Muslims in the country – the third-largest after Indonesia and Pakistan.
Asserting that it is important to delineate Islam from terrorism, Swaraj said none of the 99 names of Allah mean violence. She then devoted her speech to terrorism reasoning out how it is of utmost importance for every country to alienate those who profess it as state policy and harbour terrorists and terror infrastructure.
"Terrorism and extremism bear different names and labels. It uses diverse causes. But in each case, it is driven by distortion of religion, and a misguided belief in its power to succeed," she said, adding terrorism was destroying lives, destabilising regions and putting the world at great peril.