Jordan has called for effective and systematic action to help the Afghan people, saying that Afghanistan is now at the crossroads of either collapse and chaos or recovery.
In a speech at an extraordinary session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Safadi urged the pan-Muslim organization to put in place an effective and urgent humanitarian aid mechanism to help the Afghan people.
The meeting was called for by Saudi Arabia and was held Sunday in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
In his speech, which was on behalf of the Arab member states of the OIC, Safadi affirmed that Jordan, which has continued to provide whatever support it can to Afghanistan, including humanitarian aid through the Hashemite Charitable Organization, will continue to stand by the brotherly Afghan people.
Safadi said: “The chaos that Afghanistan experienced in the past brought upon the brotherly Afghan people terrorism and horrors, which innocents paid the price for elsewhere in our Arab and Islamic worlds, and in many other places.”
“Today, Afghanistan stands at a major crossroads, either retreating towards collapse and chaos that will plunge the Afghan people into conflict, injustice and scourge, and allow the reproduction of terrorist gangs that threaten the whole world, or recovery through a path of reconstruction that respects all the rights of the Afghan people to a decent life, and is in harmony with our Islamic and human values,” the minister emphasized.
Safadi stressed that the Arab and Islamic worlds should work collectively to protect the Afghan people, half of whose population suffers from poverty, saying: “We must take the initiative and participate actively in protecting our brothers and our interconnected world from the ignorance of extremism, and the crimes, killing and delusion it generates.”
The minister said that “there is a reality in Afghanistan that cannot be ignored”, adding, “We see no alternative but to engage with it [Afghanistan] in a dialogue based on clear humanitarian and legal goals and foundations, and in coordination with our partners, to help Afghanistan return to being an effective member of our international community.”
“We will be most affected by the outcome of the situation in Afghanistan, and therefore we should take a leading role in helping it,” Safadi asserted, calling for the formation of an Arab-Islamic contact group, which would define, in coordination with partners in the international community, the foundations on which the effort to protect Afghanistan will be based.
In his opening speech and in the sessions that followed, Safadi stressed the need for the meeting to pass two resolutions on Palestine and Jerusalem, saying that “the Palestinian cause was and will remain our first central issue.”
He added: “There will be no security, no stability, and no comprehensive and lasting peace if the Palestinian issue is not resolved on the basis that guarantees all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, foremost of which is their right to a free, independent and sovereign state with occupied Jerusalem as its capital, on the June 4, 1967 lines and according to the two-state solution, to live in security and peace alongside Israel.”
On the sidelines of the meeting, Safadi met with the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Palestine, Turkey, Iran, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Safadi also met with the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths to discuss the prospects for further aid for Syrian refugees and the challenges of declining international support for refugees and host countries alike.
Source: Jordan News Agency