Jerusalem – OIC FM communiqué – Letter from Indonesia (excerpts)

GENERAL ASSEMBLY SECURITY COUNCIL

Fifty-first session Fifty-second year

Agenda items 31, 33, 35, 39, 56, 58

  and 74

COOPERATION BETWEEN THE UNITED NATIONS

  AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ISLAMIC

  CONFERENCE

THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

QUESTION OF PALESTINE

THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN AND ITS

  IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

  AND SECURITY

THE SITUATION IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

QUESTION OF CYPRUS

THE RISK OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IN

  THE MIDDLE EAST

Letter dated 13 January 1997 from the Chargé d'affaires a.i.

of the Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the United Nations 

addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour to transmit to you herewith the text of the Final Communiqué of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Annual Coordination Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held at the United Nations, New York, on 2 October 1996.

I should be grateful if you would have the present letter and its annex circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda items 31, 33, 35, 39, 56, 58 and 74, and of the Security Council.

(Signed)  Makarim WIBISONO

Ambassador    

Chargé d'affaires

ANNEX

[Original: Arabic, English and Frenchl

Final Communique of the Organization of the Islamic Conference

Annual Coordination Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. held

at the United Nations, New York, on 2 October 1996

The OIC Annual Coordination Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs was held on 20 Jumada I, 1417H corresponding to 2 October 1996 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, under the Chairmanship of His Excellency Mr. Lamine Kamara, Minista of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Guinea, Chairman of the Twenty-Third Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers.

2 Her Excellency Mohtarma Benazir Bbutto, Prune Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, honoured the Meeting by her presence and delivered a keynote address at the opening session.

3. The Meeting noted with appreciation the Reports of the Secretary General on the items of the Agenda and approved the recommendations contained therein.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

4. The Meeting unanimously admitted the Republic of Uzbekistan as a full member of the OIC.

QUESTION OF PALESTINE AND AL-QUDS AL-SHARIF

5. The Meeting endorsed the recommendations contained in the Report of the Six–Member Committee on Palestine.

6. The Meeting endorsed the Communiqué of the Six-Member Committee on the bloody events caused by Israel's opening of a tunnel in Al-Quds Al-Sharif, which endangers Islamic and Christian holy shrines, especially the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and on the ensuring grave deterioration of the situation in Al-Quds Al-Sharif and the other occupied Palestinian territories.

7. The Meeting issued a Special Declaration on the storming by the Israeli occupation authorities into the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

8. The Meeting endorsed Resolution S/RES.1073 adopted on 28 September 1996, by the Security Council on the serious deterioration of the situation in Al-Quds Al-Sharif and the other occupied Palestinian territories. It called for action by the international community to force Israel to immediatedy close the tunnel and put an end to its aggressions against the Palestinian poople.

9. The Meeting called for continued support for the PLO and its position in the negotiations with Israel aimed at establishing the PLO's authority over all Palestinian territory, including Al-Quds Al-Sharif, as one geographical entity, ensuring the transfer of all powers and responsibilities in all fields to the Palestinian National Authority and extending support in all areas to enable it to remove the vestiges of Israeli occupation, establish Palestinian national institutions and realize the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people, including its right to return, to self-determination and to establish its own independent state on its national soil with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

10. The Meeting reaffirmed its support for the Middle East Peace Process and the implementation of all the agreements signed and the commitments made in this context between the parties concerned in accordance with the underpinnings of the process launched in Madrid, especially the principle of land for peace and the UN resolutions, in particular Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 425 which demand Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories including Al-Quds Al-Sharif, the occupied Syrian Golan, the occupied Lebanese territory; and the realization of the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people.

11. The Meeting reaffirmed that Al-Quds Al-sharif forms an integral part of the P'alestinian territory occupied in 1967 and whatever is applicable to other occupied Palestinian territories also applies to it in implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council and the UN General Assembly; it urged action to halt all measures, practices and decisions adopted by the Israeli occupation authorities in Al-Quds Al-Sharif aimed at altering the city’s geographic and demographic set-up and violating Islamic and Christian Holy Places therein with a view to Judaizing the Holy City; and called for redoubling efforts to restore Al-Quds Al-Sharif to Palestinian sovereignty as the capital of the State of Palestine, so as to ensure peace and security in the region.

12. The Meeting invited the international community, in particular the two Sponsors of the Peace Conference and the states of the European Union: to compel Israel to cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian and Areb territories, including A1-Quds Al–Sharif and the occupied Syrian Golan. To adopt firm positions towards these measures which contravene international resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 465, and the principles of international law as well as the agreements signed between the Palestinian and Israeli parties, and which constitute a serious and real threat to the entire peace process. It requested the Security Council to set up an International Monitoring Committee to prevent  the establishment of settlements in the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories.

13. The Meeting called for action within UN and international institutions and fora to compel Israel to release the detainees; return the deportees; halt the methods of mass punishment; cease the confiscation of lands and properties and the demolition of homes; also cease any actions that threaten life and the environment in the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, including Al-Quds Al-Sharif. To call for a more effective UN action to ensure the success of the Middle East peace process, for a reaffirmation of the UN responsibility for the cause of Palestine until a just and comprehensive solution to all its aspects is found, a solution that puts an end to occupation and fulfills theinalienable national rights of the Palestinian people.

14. Tbe Meeting recommended that, in the event of a total breakdown of the peace process, the possibility of re-examining the normalization of relations with Israel should be considered and that consultations should be held on this question at the appropriate time.

15. The Meeting urged the international community and the Security Council to compel Israel to comply with the UN resolutions, in particular Security Council Resolution 487 (1981); to join the Nuclear Arms Non-Proliferation Treaty; to implement the decisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which call for subjecting all Israeli nuclear facilities to the Agency's System of Comprehensive Safeguards; that Israel should declare its renunciation of nuclear armament and submit a complete statement on its stockpile of nuclear weapons and materials to the Security Council and the IAEA. This step is essential for establishing an area free from mass-destruction weapons including, in particular, nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and for bringing about a just and comprehensive peace in the region.

16. The Meeting stressed the need to coordinate the positions of Member States so as to maintain the principled stand of the OIC vis-à-vis all the resolutions concerning the cause of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, which are submitted for discussion to the Fifty-first Session of the UN General Assembly.