Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Member states agreed to establish an Istanbul-based police cooperation and coordination center to tackle terror and other crimes, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Thursday at the 13th OIC Summit Conference, held in Istanbul.
“It would be helpful to establish a structure among member states that will strengthen and institutionalize cooperation against terror and other crimes,” Erdoğan said, adding that Turkey’s proposal to realize this with an Istanbul-based center, under the formal name of OIC Center for Police Cooper
ation and Coordination, was approved by member states. His remarks came at the opening ceremony of the OIC summit.
Erdoğan said that all Muslims must overcome sectarian temptations that instigate hostility. “I believe the greatest challenge we need to surmount is sectarianism. My religion is not that of Sunnis, of Shiites. My religion is Islam,” he asserted.
Erdoğan also said that terrorist organizations that attack and kill innocent people in the name of Islam and other Muslims cannot be representatives of the “noble religion.” “We should be uniting. Out of the conflicts, the tyranny, only Muslims suffer,” he said, adding that the summit meeting could be a “turning point” for the whole Islamic world. Saying that terror is one of the gravest problems facing the Islamic world, he decried the devastation in Afghanistan, where hundreds of thousands been killed.
“Now DAESH, which controls areas in Iraq and Syria and is trying to get control of Libya, serves the same dirty plans. We see Boko Haram and Al Shabaab, which conduct terror attacks in Africa, as belonging to the same category. Apart from a few attacks done for publicity, all these terror organizations oppress and harm all Muslims,” Erdoğan stressed.
Erdoğan underscored that Muslims should be united and urged them to strengthen mutual dialogue.
“We value our fraternity as much as we value our faith,” he said.
