May 16, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 15: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday urged an end to “outside interference” in Iraq and suggested that the country could be stabilised by a Muslim peacekeeping force.

“A political solution is a dire necessity now,” the president said in an address to a meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Islamabad.

“We have to stop all outside interference in Iraq. The carnage that is taking place there has to stop, and if outside interference stops, I think internal control would be possible,” Musharraf said.

“And if all the warring factions ... accept, then maybe a Muslim peacekeeping force under the United Nations could be looked at, if that leads to peace and resolution of this crisis,” he added.

The president didn't identify any of the countries he said were meddling in Iraq. He also didn't say whether Pakistan would offer troops for a possible peacekeeping force.

The US put out diplomatic feelers about creating an Arab-Muslim peacekeeping force for Iraq as long ago as 2004, but the idea foundered on the reluctance of Egypt and other Arab nations to get involved in Iraq's chaos.

Musharraf was opening a three-day annual meeting of foreign ministers from the OIC.

He said the organisation needed reform and better funding so it could foster social and economic development in the Muslim world and counter religious extremism bred by poor living conditions.

“There is a suicidal backwardness, there are acute general disparities and low living conditions” in the Muslim world, president Musharraf said.

“The Islamic world on the whole is on a downward slide.”

The three-day meeting of foreign ministers is being attended by some 600 delegates from the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

—AP/AFP