KUALA LUMPUR, July 24: The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) will not call an emergency meeting on the Middle East crisis despite a request by Iran’s president, the bloc’s chair Malaysia said on Monday.

The group may instead hold an “executive committee meeting” as it is impossible to get all 57 members together at short notice, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told the official Bernama news agency.

“If it is possible — otherwise, we are in contact with one another to see how we should coordinate our efforts,” it quoted Syed Hamid as saying, when asked whether an executive committee meeting would be held.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) ministerial meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Syed Hamid said he spoke to OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu about the matter on Sunday but gave no further details, except for saying that it need not be held in Saudi Arabia, where the group is based.—AFP