President calls for new OIC charter
Suggests entry only for Muslim majority States

MAKKAH—President General Pervez Musharraf has said Pakistan supports the proposals designed to give new name and evolve new manifesto for Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). He urged the Muslim leaders to work out a strategy for Islamic revival and renaissance, recommended mandatory contribution by each member state for scientific and technological advancement and asked extremists to shun violence. In a wide-ranging address at the Third Extraordinary Summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, President Musharraf also called for adopting a conciliatory course in the interest of progress and prosperity of the peoples. President Musharraf said the Ummah had options of either a confrontationist course or a conciliatory one to move forward in the comity of nations.
He said the confrontationist course can only lead to further destruction and deprivation and exhorted the need to adopt a conciliatory approach for the wellbeing of the future generations and the prosperity and progress of the people. “From this holy city of peace and tolerance, I appeal to all extremists in our society to see reason, and shun the path of violence, which offers no salvation and will only lead to more pain and more misery,” he stated at the extraordinary moot held to find a way out of problems affecting the Muslim world’s development.
The President regretted that the Muslims today remained stuck in a dire predicament, facing formidable challenges on all political, economic and intellectual fronts. He said most Islamic societies were struggling to evolve stable institutions for governance and remained far removed from the expanding frontiers of knowledge, education, science and technology. “Our economies remain fragile and mostly dependent on raw material production. Even the rich among us are consumers of the fruits of modernization and innovation of other advanced nations who are shaping the direction of progress and future of the world”.—APP

King Abdullah urges unity, moderation

MAKKAH (Saudi Arabia)—Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah appealed to Muslim leaders on Wednesday to unite and tackle extremists who he said have hijacked their religion. Opening a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) — the world’s biggest Muslim body — in the holy city of Mecca, Abdullah said the world’s one billion Muslims were weak and divided. “It bleeds the heart of a believer to see how this glorious civilization has fallen from the height of glory to the ravine of frailty, and how its thoughts were hijacked by devilish and criminal gangs that spread havoc on earth,” Abdullah said. Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 al Qaeda hijackers who killed 3,000 people in the United States on September 11, 2001, is also battling a wave of militant violence at home. US critics have blamed the kingdom’s strict Wahhabi school of Islam for fostering extremism, but Saudi officials say they are tackling the militants through a tough security crackdown and a campaign to win over militant sympathizers. Abdullah called for greater educational efforts to promote tolerance

.—Agencies