Following reports of Saudi Arabia agreeing to convene a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the issue of Kashmir, experts speaking to The Quint suggested that not much needs to be read into the development.
The OIC is a 57-member grouping of Muslim majority nations, including Pakistan.
Pakistan Expects Meeting in April 2020
Earlier during the day, news agency PTI reported state-run Radio Pakistan as saying that the ministerial level OIC meeting was expected to be held in Islamabad in April 2020.
According to PTI, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Sunday, 29 December, confirmed that Islamabad wanted that an early meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) be convened to discuss the human rights situation in Kashmir.
"Pakistan desires an early meeting of the foreign ministers of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on the human rights violations in Kashmir," he said while talking to the reporters in his home town of Multan.
Qureshi's confirmation came after media reports here said that Saudi Arabia conveyed to Pakistan through its foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan this week that it was planning to convene a meeting on the Kashmir issue.
The foreign minister also said Pakistan had been raising the issue of Kashmir at appropriate forums and accused India of ceasefire violations along the Line of Control.
The development took place in backdrop of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal’s day-long visit to Islamabad to convey the Saudi leadership’s gratitude to Pakistan for not participating in the recently held Kuala Lumpur summit of Muslim nations in view of the Gulf Kingdom’s reservations.
‘Reluctant Acceptance; Shouldn’t Concern India,’ Say Experts
Reacting to the development, Syed Ata Hasnain, a former GOC of the Army’s 15 Corps, told The Quint that "the meeting is unlikely to be of much consequence since there are yet four months left for the event."
"While Pakistan under pressure of Saudi Arabia pulled out of the Kuala Lumpur summit sponsored by Malaysia and Turkey and held on 18-21 December 2019, it sought sops from the Saudis. The latter clearly not wishing to push too far on an issue which threatened the primacy of the Saudi-led OIC, appears to have relented with acceptance of Kashmir and the CAA as items on the agenda at the meeting," he said.
“While Pakistan’s diplomacy has been hyper, its results relating to Kashmir have hardly been commensurate with the major Gulf countries continuing to back India,” he added.
Speaking on similar lines, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, a former Consul-General of India in Karachi, termed Saudi's decision as a "placatory move".
“Within the OIC, there is a growing split between Turkey and Malaysia on one side and Saudi Arabia and UAE on the other. Pakistan is caught in between. Saudi has agreed to the meeting entirely to placate Pakistan. I don’t think it is anything substantive and it is more of a placatory move. It’s like a lollipop,” he said.
"OIC has passed such resolutions earlier as well and it should not be much of a concern for India. In fact Saudi Arabia has promised big ticket investments in India," he also said.
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