İhsanoğlu asserts importance of OIC securing UN Security Council seat

The Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, has stressed that one of the Organisation’s main goals is to secure a seat at the UN Security Council.

During a recent lecture, İhsanoğlu asserted that the reason for this is that the OIC is the sole representative of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world. “It is the second biggest world organisation,” he added.

His lecture, delivered on Wednesday at the Diplomatic Institute of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in Cairo, was titled “Horizons of Cooperation among Muslim Countries over the Next Three Years.”

Egyptian newspaper, al-Shorouk, which published the news, reported İhsanoğlu as saying: “The Organisation has recently become more developed and global.”

He noted that it exerted much effort in mobilizing votes for Palestine to get full membership to UNESCO as well as observer non-member state status at the UN General Assembly last November.

Regarding the organisation’s international relations, İhsanoğlu said that it maintains good relations with the US, UK, France and the UN. He also noted that beside their common interests, they also enjoyed good relations with the Arab League.