JEDDAH: In a media interaction, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to OIC, Ambassador Rizwan
Saeed Sheikh said that Pakistan was hosting an extraordinary session of OIC Council of
Foreign Ministers (CFM) on December 19, 2021. The session was being organized in response to
a proposal made by the KSA, the OIC summit chair. The session was primarily aimed at
addressing the serious and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.
Ambassador Sheikh highlighted that the situation in Afghanistan needed the urgent attention of the
international community. According to the United Nations, 60% of Afghanistan’s 38 million
people faced “crisis levels of hunger”. As the situation was getting worse every day, the risk of acute malnutrition and internal displacement was continuously increasing. He added that there was
a growing risk of an economic collapse, which would be a humanitarian tragedy, spurring instability and leading to a mass exodus of refugees.
The Permanent Representative stressed that OIC, as the collective voice of the Muslim Ummah, must play its part in addressing the humanitarian needs of Afghan people. He added
that the CFM session would aim at expressing Muslim Ummah’s solidarity with the Afghan
people; pledging humanitarian assistance, and refocusing the attention of the broader international
community on the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in Afghanistan.
The ambassador maintained that Pakistan had been undertaking intense diplomatic outreach efforts since 15 August 2021, and the CFM Session was another initiative to mobilize the Muslim
countries for promoting peace, security, and economic stability in Afghanistan.
The permanent representative informed that the extraordinary session was being held in addition to the regular 48 CFM session, to be held on 22-23 March 2022 in Islamabad. The regular session
would coincide with Pakistan’s 75th-anniversary celebrations. He recalled that Pakistan had hosted
a regular CFM session as well as an extraordinary session on Afghanistan in 1980 as well.
