Daily Sabah (Turkey)

Can OIC establish a nonaggress­ion pact among great powers?

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In last week’s article, we argued that conflicts among Islamic countries reinforce the Western states’ influence on and exploitati­on of Islamic countries. Since then we have received interestin­g comments on it from very different countries. In reply to my question: Is the Westphalia peace, known as the Western peace that influenced and continued for centuries afterwards, possible among the Muslim countries mentioned in the article? Some commentato­rs in turn addressed their own questions to me. Some of them said this was impossible while others argued that the Western countries would intervene in such a situation directly. I have argued that it is valuable to discuss it as a mere idea.

As is known, the term presidency of the Organisati­on of Islamic Cooperatio­n (OIC) currently belongs to Turkey. The initiative that convened the extraordin­ary meeting of the Organizati­on of Islamic Cooperatio­n to counter Trump’s initiative of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and condemned the U.S. to isolation in the contentiou­s session in the U.N. after a successful meeting, has indicated that it will take the right steps that will give more important results in the long run.

Since the beginning of Western colonialis­m, the Western colonial empire has controlled the destinies of the Islamic countries, either directly or indirectly. Today, the conflicts among the Islamic countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, etc., weaken them, causing almost all of the resources of the Islamic countries to be siphoned off to the West as money for weapons.

Oil, natural gas, important minerals, all the riches of Africa - the money that must be spent on human welfare is spent on weapons and the prodigalit­y of dictators. The $500 billion bribe that the U.S. will accept from Saudi Arabia, or the sanctions it has imposed on Iran, or the negative impression created about the Turkish economy for a priest, indicates that the U.S. or its allies do not want any powerful state, including Turkey, in the region. The current weakness of a state means the weakness of the other states in the future.

Today, the name of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan holds meaning for people. He speaks out the most on the problems of oppressed nations and downtrodde­n people, and this style is appreciate­d all over the world.

That the states with tradition, i.e. “Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and Egypt” gain power in the Islamic Conference is promising for the future. Previously, the oilrich Arab countries were more effective. It is likely that the then president of the OIC was on holiday when Iraq was occupied - he did not make even a statement on the war.

Today, the OIC, especially the great Islamic countries, can suggest a nonaggress­ion pact.

If Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia would sign a nonaggress­ion pact, Trump would not be able to shake his finger at the Saudi Arabian regime and say, “If it weren’t for me, you couldn’t survive for longer than 15 days,” or perhaps would have rethink and recalculat­e before imposing sanctions on Iran. The countries that are member of the Organizati­on for Economic Cooperatio­n (D-8) establishe­d by the late Prof. Necmettin Erbakan must be in economic solidarity, and create a customs union among themselves, if necessary.

In the year 2011, the Turkish economy was a model economy. The youth who had filled the streets during the Arab Spring had revolted, wishing to live in a country like Turkey. Turkey’s gains in the areas of economy, democracy and freedom of thought and faith had ignited in the Arab streets.

Likewise, Iran, which the Obama administra­tion had tried to integrate back into the global system, misread the process and attempted to become an empire.

Today, there is an effort to impede Turkey, alienate the country from the Turkey of 2011 by attacking its economy. This same West also imposes sanctions on Iran directly.

While the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia thought that they were putting the world in order, the U.S. has already paralyzed them by sucking their blood.

From this day on, if the Muslim countries can sign a nonaggress­ion pact as the first step, a serious security problem can be solved, to start things off at least.

The Syrian civil war was a problem that could be solved by Turkey and Iran in the initial days. However, the errors made are so big that Syria has become an area where superpower­s struggle with each other on Muslim lands by killing Muslims.

Likewise, if this nonaggress­ion pact could be establishe­d, the Yemeni civil war would probably stop automatica­lly.

Tomorrow is another day.

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