Posted on 06/28/2005 4:33:35 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
MOSCOW, June 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia hopes to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference as an observer, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday prior to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's three-day visit to Yemen.
Lavrov will attend a conference of OIC foreign ministers during his visit. The Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Alexander Yakovenko, said the conference was likely to discuss Russia's accession as an observer.
Yakovenko said the discussion in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, would revolve round Russia's interaction with the Muslim community to build a secure world and solve a number of international and regional problems. He added that Lavrov would present an approach capable of doing this at the OIC conference.
"Accordingly, the practice of Russia's guest attendance at the organization's conferences will be resumed," Yakovenko said.
"Moscow is satisfied with the expansion of cooperation between Russia and the Islamic world," he said. He added that this could be seen in heightened trade and economic relations with the leading Islamic states, and expanded political contacts.
Yakovenko said Russia, as a great Eurasian power situated where the Christian and Islamic worlds meet, could make a great contribution to establishing practical partnership, interaction and dialogue.
"We proceed from the basis that international terrorism and religious extremism have nothing in common with Islam," Yakovenko. The spokesman continued that Russia and the Muslim world were "not only partners but strategic allies" in the fight against international terrorism and religious extremism.
"We proceed from the basis that international terrorism and religious extremism have nothing in common with Islam,"
Yakovenko said with a straight face.
"...the Muslim community to build a secure world and solve a number of international and regional problems."
I know it's early, but that's the funniest thing I've read all day.
The muslim world has such an exemplary record in solving international problems...
It would be interesting if OIC would discuss about human rights abuse going on in Chechenya by the Russians. I would like to see how Russian observers would react.
EUROPEAN AID TO CHECHNYA, A CHRISTMAS PRESENT?
MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) - One rather mysterious part of President Putin's recent visit to Germany may shape Europe's policy for the coming years. Mr. Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder discussed Chechnya. Very little is known about their discussion except that in the fall, Germany sent Mr. Putin a set of proposals on Chechnya in preparation for the visit and recently, in Hamburg, Mr. Putin said he "agreed completely" with the proposals. The next day in Schleswig, Mr. Putin said, "we are ready to discuss them [problems of Chechnya] with our partners in Europe." And finally, on the train to Schleswig, the press services announced that the Russian president and the German chancellor had discussed Chechnya. Europe displayed pro-Muslim leanings in the 1990s, when it sided with the creeping expansion of Islamic terrorist organizations in Serbian lands in Kosovo. And then its urban population demonstrated their anti-Muslim reflexes during the dramatic dispute about girls wearing headscarves in schools. Europe has also shown contradictions in its attitude toward Israel and Palestine, Iran and Iraq. Some European countries participated in the US-led war in Iraq when others stood on the side. In general, it is total intellectual and political chaos. It does not helpthat the purely cultural problem has been compounded with Islamic terrorism in Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq...
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