December 18, 2019
By Joseph Sipalan and Stephen Kalin
KUALA LUMPUR/RIYADH (Reuters) – Leaders from many Muslim nations including Turkey and Iran gathered in Malaysia on Wednesday to tackle issues agitating Muslims globally at a summit that has been snubbed by Saudi Arabia and its close ally Pakistan.
At a welcome dinner for the guests, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the Kuala Lumpur Summit would aim to “do something” to improve the lives of Muslims and overcome Islamophobia.
“We need to find a way to address our shortcomings, our dependency on non-Muslims to protect ourselves against the enemies of Islam,” said 94-year-old Mahathir, the world’s oldest premier and one of its most vocal.
The four-day summit could also discuss mounting outrage over China’s camps for Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang – a subject that will doubtless upset Beijing.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who along with Mahathir and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan had been a prime mover behind the summit, made a belated decision to skip the meeting.
Some Pakistani officials, unnamed because they are not authorized to speak to the media, said Khan pulled out under pressure from Saudi Arabia, though media reports say his officials deny that was the reason why the world’s second largest Muslim country won’t be represented.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamid Al-Thani, whose countries have tense relations with Saudi Arabia, are attending.
Saudi Arabia said the summit was the wrong forum for matters of importance to the world’s 1.75 billion Muslims, though some analysts suspected the Kingdom feared being diplomatically isolated by regional rivals Iran, Qatar and Turkey.
Saudi state news agency SPA reported that on a call with Mahathir on Tuesday, Saudi King Salman reaffirmed that such issues should be discussed through the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
A Saudi source said the country declined to attend because the meeting was not being held under the auspices of the OIC. The Saudi government’s center for international communication did not respond to a request for comment.
“WEAKENING OF ISLAM”
OIC Secretary-General Yousf al-Othaimeen told Sky News Arabia that it was against the interests of the Islamic community to convene meetings outside the aegis of the OIC. He also said the Kuala Lumpur summit splinters Islamic solidarity and is out of tune.
“Any weakening of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is a weakening of Islam and Muslims,” he told the broadcaster.
The absence of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, whose king also hold the title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina, demonstrates some of the divisions in the Muslim world.
“The issue is that you’ve got blocs,” said James Dorsey, a senior fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Middle East Institute in Singapore. “You’ve got a Saudi-UAE bloc, Turkey-Qatari bloc, and Pakistan in the middle trying to hedge their bets.”
Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, would be represented by Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, a cleric overseeing the country’s fight against radicalization and terrorism.
Defending the summit, Mahathir’s office issued a statement saying there was no intention to create a “new bloc as alluded to by some of its critics”.
“In addition, the Summit is not a platform to discuss about religion or religious affairs but specifically to address the state of affairs of the Muslim Ummah,” it said, using the Arabic term for community.
Speaking to Reuters last week, Mahathir expressed frustration with the OIC’s inability to forge a united front and act decisively. The Malaysian leader also raised the possibility that the alleged mistreatment of Muslim Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang would be discussed.
Beijing describes the camps where Uighur Muslims are being held as “vocational training centers”, while critics say they are mass internment camps.
(Additional reporting Stephen Kalin in Riyadh and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
