MANILA (Mitch Confesor / 17 Jun) Secretary Jesus Dureza, Presidential Peace Adviser, left Friday night for Moscow enroute to Baku, Azerbaijan to attend the ministerial meeting of the influential Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) next week in the western side of the oil-rich Caspian region.
Five nations border the Caspian's shores: Azerbaijan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russian Federation.
Dureza, accompanied by his undersecretary Nabil Tan, will join Filipino Foreign Affairs Secy. Alberto Romulo in the June 19-21 annual meeting before proceeding to Oslo, Norway to attend an international peace forum.
Expected to be taken up in the Baku conference is the issue of the implementation of the 1996 peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The OIC last month dispatched an official mission to the Southern Philippines headed by Ambassador Sayed El-Masry, adviser to Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC Secretary General, to assess the progress of the implementation of the 10-year-old peace deal.
The week-long Mindanao mission which began May 18, included the member-nations of the OIC Committee of the Eight (C8), represented by their respective envoys here.
They include Ambassadors Salem Adem of Libya, Mohammed Ameen Wali of Saudi Arabia, Irzan Tandjung of Indonesia, Muhammad Abul Quashem of Bangladesh, Emaleen Abdul Rahman Teo of Brunei, and Wan Jaafar Wan Mahamud, chargé d’affaires of Malaysia.
Manila has continued to bid for observer status in the OIC to help open more avenues of official cooperation between the Philippines and the Islamic nations.
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