ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign minister said on Thursday he would leave for Turkey that evening to attend an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss ways to tackle Islamophobia in the aftermath of attacks on two mosques in New Zealand last week.
At least 50 people, including nine Pakistanis, were killed in twin attacks on two mosques by an ultra-right white extremist who live-streamed the assaults and posted an elaborate racist manifesto online.
Turkey announced the emergency meeting of the OIC to discuss the New Zealand mosque attacks and "increasing violence based on Islamophobia". The country's foreign ministry said in a statement published on Thursday that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu would chair the meeting to be held in Istanbul on Friday.
“Turkey, as the OIC Summit Chair, has called upon holding an emergency meeting for discussing the increasing violence based on Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia, in particular the terrorist attack that targeted two mosques in New Zealand on 15 March 2019,” the statement said.
It also said that apart from the OIC members, the representatives of the United Nations, the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe were also invited to the meeting.
