Maghreb states agree on common line: Tackling Muslim world’s issues
RABAT (Morocco), July 19: President Gen Pervez Musharraf said here on Saturday that Pakistan and the maghreb countries — Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco — concurred on the need for a common strategy to address issues facing the Muslim Ummah.
“The leadership of all these three countries are on board, and have assured us of their full support to evolve a strategy for Muslim Ummah to move forward,” the president said while inaugurating the newly-constructed Pakistan’s Chancery building.
He said Pakistan and the three countries “have agreed to coordinate their thoughts and views” before the upcoming OIC summit to achieve results. To a question, he said his visit would help open up new avenues of cooperation in trade and commerce.
“It is an era of geo-economics and not of geo-politics,” he remarked.
President Musharraf said the three countries, in principle, agreed on free trade agreements with Pakistan with a view to providing further impetus to the efforts at increasing their existing level of trade.
He said he coordinated views with the leadership of the three countries on international issues, especially Iraq and the ongoing peace process in the Middle East to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
As the president arrived at the Chancery building on the outskirts of Rabat city, he was received by Pakistan’s ambassador Maj-Gen (retd) Shujaat Ali Khan.
He unveiled the plaque and offered “dua”. He also took a round of the building.
Earlier, addressing a press conference on Friday, he called for resolving political disputes, generally involving Muslims, in a just manner, and voiced his opposition to opening up of new fronts that would further destabilize the situation around the world.
“The world is in turmoil... there is a de-stabilization in the world, therefore, we must immediately address the situation so that we can move forward to bring peace in the world,” he said.
The president was responding to a question regarding the possibility of any action being taken against Iran vis-a-vis its alleged nuclear programme.
He stressed the need for resolving political disputes which generally involved Muslims because “the Muslim world has started perceiving that their religion Islam was being targeted.”
The president said it was more important to resolve disputes, especially the Palestinian-Israeli deadlock, with justice.
He stressed that Pakistan would certainly be against opening of new fronts and further destabilizing the situation around the world.
Replying to a question the president reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to fight terror.
He said so far Pakistan had apprehended 500 Al Qaeda members and their Taliban supporters. He said both Pakistan and Morocco were part of the international coalition against terrorism.
President Musharraf said during his talks with King Mohammad he expressed his views that it was the problem of extremism which was much more serious and deeper, and needed to be addressed in a very subtle and strategic manner to eradicate the root causes of terrorism in the world.
“We need to see the causes of religious and sectarian extremism and address them.”
The president said the problem of extremism could be addressed in two ways — addressing the issue of poverty and lack of education and resolving all political disputes involving Muslims.
He said addressing these two issues would pave the way for addressing the root causes of terrorism.
President Musharraf said that in his talks he expressed the “need to address this issue in the forthcoming OIC summit.”
He made it clear that Pakistan would not retain any foreign terrorist suspect and would send them to their country of origin after carrying out the necessary investigation.—Agencies
