UNITED NATIONS: India has voiced objection to a UN General Assembly draft resolution component that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation could foster solutions to “other conflicts”, as it strongly said that the group has “no locus standi” to resolve disputes affecting non-member states.
The draft resolution ‘Cooperation between the UN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’ was introduced in the General Assembly yesterday and was adopted without a vote.
India’s Deputy Permanent Representative Ambassador Bhagwant Bishnoi termed the resolution “a significant departure” from the previous resolutions on the subject.
He noted that previous resolutions had envisaged the OIC as contributing to promoting and facilitating the Middle East Peace Process to achieve the objective of establishing a just and comprehensive peace in that region.
However, an operative paragraph in the present resolution “seeks to go beyond” this role envisaged for the OIC, he said.
“According to the draft resolution introduced today, the OIC could foster solutions to ‘other conflicts’. The rationale for seeking to extend the role of the OIC in this manner is not clear,” he said, adding the OIC is also not a regional organization, as understood in the context of the UN Charter.
“While we do not ask for a vote, we would like to reiterate our position that the OIC has no locus standi for facilitating resolutions to any dispute outside the Middle East Peace Process or disputes that affect non-OIC member states,” Bishnoi said yesterday.
He said India had constructively participated in the consultations on the text and conveyed its views in clear terms. He said the consultations were terminated abruptly without resolving these issues and without coming to a common, mutually acceptable understanding.
The draft resolution affirmed that the “UN and the OIC share a common goal of promoting and facilitating the Middle East peace process so that the process can reach its objective of establishing a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and also share a common objective of fostering peaceful and political solutions to other conflicts in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the relevant resolutions of the Security Council.”
The representative of Kuwait, on behalf of the OIC, introduced the draft in the UNGA.
In August, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi had said in an open debate of the UN Security Council that the OIC has the capabilities to address and overcome challenges, including Palestine and other Middle East conflicts as well as the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
India has maintained that the UN Charter does not envisage any role for organizations formed on the basis of language, religion or historical coincidence.–PTI
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