ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday invited the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to attend a Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meeting to be hosted by Islamabad next month.
The OIC is the second-largest intergovernmental organization in the world after the UN. It consists of 57 Muslim member states spread across four continents. The OIC is considered the collective voice of Muslim countries around the world and aims to promote the interests of its member states.
The CFM is an annual event held to adopt decisions and policies of the OIC by member states. It also reviews implementation or progress made on the decisions that were taken during previous summits.
OIC foreign ministers were last in Islamabad in December for the 17th Extraordinary Session of the OIC's Council of Foreign Ministers. The session, called by Saudi Arabia, was focused on the economic crisis in Afghanistan.
“I am here at the OIC Expo 2020 Pavilion in Dubai and I have come here to invite my colleagues and friends, foreign ministers of the OIC member states, to visit us in Islamabad on the 22nd and 23rd of March for the 48th session of the CFM,” FM Qureshi said in a video message.
“The people of Pakistan are looking forward to your visit and are anxious to receive you. Welcome to Islamabad.”
Qureshi had last month announced that Pakistan would host the 48th session of the CFM in Islamabad where the foreign ministers of Muslim member states would be invited to witness the military parade on March 23, held each year to mark Pakistan Day.
Pakistan invites OIC foreign ministers to annual meeting in Islamabad
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Pakistan invites OIC foreign ministers to annual meeting in Islamabad
- Pakistan will host 48th annual OIC Council of Foreign Ministers conference from March 22-23 in Islamabad
- “People of Pakistan looking forward to your visit, anxious to receive you,” Qureshi says at OIC pavilion
Peshawar church attack haunts Christians at Christmas
- The 2013 suicide attack at All Saints Church killed 113 worshippers, leaving lasting scars on survivors
- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to protect religious minorities on Christmas, act against any injustice
PESHAWAR: After passing multiple checkpoints under the watchful eyes of snipers stationed overhead, hundreds of Christians gathered for a Christmas mass in northwest Pakistan 12 years after suicide bombers killed dozens of worshippers.
The impact of metal shards remain etched on a wall next to a memorial bearing the names of those killed at All Saints Church in Peshawar, in the violence-wracked province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“Even today, when I recall that day 12 years ago, my soul trembles,” Natasha Zulfiqar, a 30-year-old housewife who was wounded in the attack along with her parents, told AFP on Thursday.
Her right wrist still bears the scar.
A militant group claimed responsibility for the attack on September 22, 2013, when 113 people were killed, according to a church toll.
“There was blood everywhere. The church lawn was covered with bodies,” Zulfiqar said.
Christians make up less than two percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people and have long faced discrimination in the conservative Muslim country, often sidelined into low-paying jobs and sometimes the target of blasphemy charges.
Along with other religious minorities, the community has often been targeted by militants over the years.
Today, a wall clock inside All Saints giving the time of the blast as 11:43 am is preserved in its damaged state, its glass shattered.
“The blast was so powerful that its marks are still visible on this wall — and those marks are not only on the wall, but they are also etched into our hearts as well,” said Emmanuel Ghori, a caretaker at the church.
Addressing a Christmas ceremony in the capital Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to protect religious minorities.
“I want to make it clear that if any injustice is done to any member of a minority, the law will respond with full force,” he said.
For Azzeka Victor Sadiq, whose father was killed and mother wounded in the blasts, “The intensity of the grief can never truly fade.”
“Whenever I come to the church, the entire incident replays itself before my eyes,” the 38-year-old teacher told AFP.
