OIC FMs moot: Qureshi has no plans to meet Sushma

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has not requested for a meeting between its Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj when they will be under one roof in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi on March 1.

Swaraj has been invited as the ‘Guest of Honour’ to address the 46th Foreign Ministers conference of the OIC on its 50th anniversary. Highly placed diplomatic sources of the host country told The News/Jang Monday evening that Qureshi had already accepted the invitation to attend the historic conference.

The sources made it clear that Pakistan has no plans to lodge protest on the invitation extended to the Indian minister for addressing the august gathering of Muslim countries’ foreign ministers.

The diplomatic sources pointed out that India too had not requested for a meeting between the ministers of Pakistan and India in Abu Dhabi. “The UAE has not proposed a meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India either,” the sources maintained. Meanwhile, sources explained that Sushma’s address to the OIC foreign ministers will not mean that New Delhi has been offered membership of the OIC.

She will not participate in the formal discussion and meeting of foreign ministers, the sources explained. The invitation is a proposal of the host government and it has got nothing to do with the OIC, the sources reminded. The OIC Contact Group on Kashmir under the leadership of Turkey will have its meeting in Jeddah today (Tuesday) where the latest human right situation in the Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) will come up for discussion.

Indian occupied forces’ atrocities will also be part of the agenda for discussion. The group will submit a report on its deliberations in the Council of the Foreign Ministers of the OIC in Abu Dhabi, the sources added. The Abu Dhabi conference will also take up the question of state of affairs of the Muslim minorities in different countries including India.