ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has endorsed an initiative by Saudi Arabia to request an ‘extraordinary session’ of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) to assess the situation in Afghanistan, and offered to host the meeting next month.
Saudi Arabia, as chair of the Islamic Summit, has called upon the OIC to urgently convene an extraordinary ministerial-level meeting to discuss a growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan on December 17, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Monday.
Afghanistan has been plunged into crisis by the abrupt end of billions of dollars in foreign assistance, following the collapse of the Western-backed government and return to power of the Taliban in August.
“Pakistan fully endorses this [Saudi] initiative, we have also offered to host a meeting in Islamabad on 17 December 2021,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in video message, adding that he hoped OIC member states would “endorse this offer.”
Qureshi said Afghanistan was a founding member of the OIC and “today our Afghan brothers and sisters need us more than ever before.”
He added that Afghanistan was facing a “serious humanitarian situation,” with millions of Afghans including women and children faced with an uncertain future due to shortages of food, medicine, and other essential life supplies: “The advent of winter has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.”
“OIC must step-in to help our Afghan brethren. We should step-up our collective efforts to alleviate the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people, provide immediate and sustained support to them, and continue to remain engaged with them for the well-being and prosperity of Afghanistan,” Qureshi said.
UN agencies have also raised concerns that nearly 23 million Afghans are facing acute food shortages
Billions of dollars in international aid have dried up as the international community works out how to interact with the Taliban movement, while billions more in foreign currency reserves are locked up in vaults in the West.
The Taliban have called on members of the United States Congress to act to unfreeze Afghanistan’s assets. Washington has seized nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank since the Taliban took power in mid-August this year.
Last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan approved a humanitarian assistance package for Afghanistan and ordered the immediate shipment of humanitarian assistance worth Rs. 5 billion.
