JEDDAH: The situation in Syria could take a turn for the worse if the government continued to disregard calls for reconciliation and reforms, Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu warned Saturday.
"We were promised by top Syrian officials that the security situation would improve, but so far nothing of that sort has happened," he told Arab News.
Ihsanoglu said he had personally contacted a number of top Syrian officials, including Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem, in this regard, but the stalemate continues. "Even Al-Muallem promised that the security situation would improve but it did not," Ihsanoglu said.
"We were also told that some hidden hands were agitating sentiments against Syria. Regrettably, we have not seen any improvement so far. The situation is worsening," he said.
Ihsanoglu said a number of Arab and Islamic countries had exerted individual efforts to break the stalemate in Syria. "Everyone was trying to bring peace, but nothing happened," he said, adding that the hardening stance of the government has led to the increase of international campaigns against Syria.
The secretary-general, however, denied any inclination on the part of the OIC to freeze Syria's membership in the 57-member organization.
"There is no intention on the part of the members to freeze Syria's membership in the organization at the moment. The political will toward this end is not available now, because all the members are still making individual efforts toward a peaceful solution."
Ihsanoglu said he did not believe that events in Syria would follow the Libyan path. "Events in Libya turned bloody due to the ferocity of Qaddafi's regime. In Syria, the protesters were sticking to the peaceful struggle," he said.
He also recalled that OIC had issued five statements on the precarious situation in Syria "in which we expressed our deep worry about the excessive use of force by the army and security forces against peaceful demonstrators, and this was against international law and concept of human rights."
He said he had sent a special envoy to Damascus.
© Arab News 2011
