India spurns OIC's proposal to send team to J&K, says bloc must not be used by vested interests

The OIC has been echoing Pakistan to oppose India’s August 2019 move to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status

Even as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) of late proposed to send a delegation to Jammu and Kashmir and offered to facilitate talks between New Delhi and Islamabad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government advised the 57-nation-bloc not to allow Pakistan to subvert its forum for campaign against India.

New Delhi’s envoy to Saudi Arabia, Ausaaf Sayeed, had a meeting with the OIC Secretary General, Yousef Al-Othaimeen, at the secretariat of the bloc in Jeddah on July 5 last. Othaimeen reviewed with Sayeed “a number of issues concerning the situation of Muslims in India, along with the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, and (the) relevant UN (United Nations) and OIC resolutions opposing any unilateral actions on the issue”, according to a press release issued by the general secretariat of the bloc.

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The OIC has been echoing Pakistan to oppose India’s August 2019 move to strip J&K of its special status and to reorganise the erstwhile state into two Union Territories. It has also been terming the move as a “unilateral action” by New Delhi.

Othaimeen once again conveyed to Sayeed that the OIC general secretariat wanted to dispatch a delegation to the disputed territory in line with the relevant resolutions of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the bloc.

The OIC Secretary General also discussed with New Delhi’s envoy to Riyadh about the possibility of talks between India and Pakistan, stating that the secretariat of the bloc stood ready to assist if it was requested to do so by the two parties.

Sayeed, however, conveyed to Othaimeen that the OIC should “correct” some of its misperception about India. He also told the OIC Secretary General to make sure that its platform was not “subverted” by the “vested interests”. He told the OIC Secretary General that the bloc should refrain from commenting on internal affairs of India and should not issue biased or one-sided resolutions for running propaganda against India, Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), told journalists in New Delhi.

Bagchi said that Sayeed had met Othaimeen on July 5 in response to an earlier request made by the OIC Secretary General.

The OIC has been echoing Pakistan to oppose India’s August 2019 move to strip J&K of its special status and to reorganise the erstwhile state into two Union Territories. It repeatedly termed the move as a “unilateral action” by New Delhi.

India, unlike Pakistan, is not a member of the OIC, which calls itself the “collective voice” of 1.8 billion Muslims of the world.

But, Sushma Swaraj, the then External Affairs Minister, had attended the 46th meeting of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Abu Dhabi in March 2019 as a guest of honour on an invitation by the host of the conclave and her United Arab Emirates counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayhan.

The invitation had been seen as a major diplomatic success for New Delhi as Pakistan had always used the OIC as a forum to slam India on the issue of Kashmir, particularly on the alleged violation of human rights by security forces in Kashmir. The UAE had paid no heed to the protest from Pakistan and had arranged for the External Affairs of India to address the conclave. Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Foreign Minister of Pakistan, had boycotted the OIC meet to protest the invitation to his counterpart in New Delhi.

But just a day after Swaraj’s address to the OIC foreign ministers, the bloc had again issued a statement, toeing Pakistan’s line and criticising India on the issue of J&K.

The OIC has also been making statements against India at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). India has been rejecting the reference to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in the statement of the OIC. “It has no locus standi to comment on matters related to Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral and inalienable part of India. It is regrettable that the OIC continues to allow itself to be exploited by Pakistan to indulge in anti-India propaganda,” New Delhi’s representative told the UNHRC on March 2 this year.