ISLAMABAD: Pakistan President Dr. Arif Alvi stressed on Friday the need for greater cooperation among Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries in the areas of science and technology and to counter Islamophobia in the world, Pakistani state media reported. 

He expressed these views in his meeting with Tajikistan’s outgoing ambassador to Pakistan, Ismatullo Nasredin, who paid a farewell call to him in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. 

The OIC is the second-largest intergovernmental organization in the world, after the United Nations. It consists of 57 Muslim member states spread across four continents and is considered a collective voice of Muslim countries around the world. 

“President Dr. Arif Alvi on Friday stressed the need for increasing cooperation among Islamic countries to overcome the issue of Islamophobia in the world,” the state-run APP news agency reported. 

“[He] emphasized greater cooperation among the OIC member states in the areas of science and technology to meet modern-day challenges.” 

President Alvi congratulated the outgoing ambassador on the successful completion of his tenure in Islamabad and appreciated his efforts for the promotion of friendly relations between Pakistan and Tajikistan. 

Pakistan attached great significance to its relations with Tajikistan as it was Pakistan’s closest Central Asian neighbor,” the president was quoted as saying. “There was great potential to increase bilateral trade and economic cooperation that needed to be fully exploited.” 

President Alvi called for exploring new avenues of economic cooperation for the mutual benefit of the two brotherly countries and expressed satisfaction over the steadily expanding bilateral relations between Pakistan and Tajikistan in trade, energy, defense and other areas.