Islamic summit ends in Istanbul highlighting anti-terror fight

The 13th summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) ended here on Friday by prioritizing the fighting against all forms of terrorism.

"The conference stressed that the fight against terrorism is a major priority for all member states, and reiterated its resolve to work together to prevent and suppress terrorist acts," said a final communique adopted at the conclusion of the two-day summit.

The gathering drew more than 30 heads of state and government from the 57-member group under the theme of "Unity and Solidarity for Justice and Peace."

"The conference unequivocally condemned all acts, methods and practices of terrorism committed by whomsoever and wherever, and expressed determination of member states to remain united in the fight against terrorism," the communique said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while addressing a press conference following the closure of the summit, drew attention to the fact that Islamic nations have been suffering most from terrorism.

The president announced a day earlier that OIC member states had approved the establishment of an OIC Center for Police Cooperation and Coordination in Istanbul with a view to "strengthening and institutionalizing cooperation against terror and other crimes."

"Who is behind terror? What countries stand behind terrorism? I find that to be tremendously meaningful," Erdogan said at his press conference.

The Turkish leader blamed Russia for backing the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing People's Protection Units (YPG) as the "extensions" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Turkey is battling against in the country's southeast.

Erdogan also said that Russia has been arming the PYD and YPG and allowing them to open branches in Moscow.

Ankara-Moscow ties have been strained since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November last year.

Despite the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the summit, the final communique "deplored" Iran's interference in the internal affairs of regional countries and "its continued support for terrorism."

On the Syrian war, the summit reaffirmed its support for a political settlement based on the Geneva Communique and backed the political process under the UN auspices.

The UN-mediated peace talks have made little progress thus far to end the five-year war in Syria, which has killed over a quarter million people and displaced millions of others.

The first of three scheduled rounds of negotiations, which ended last month, yielded 12 points of commonalities between the warring factions, but failed to touch upon the issue of political transition.

The latest round of Syrian peace talks kicked off as planned in Geneva on Wednesday.

Despite OIC's determination to fight terrorism through joint efforts, it is "very difficult" for the group with a total population of some 1.7 billion to act in solidarity, said Ali Semin, a Middle East analyst at the Istanbul-based Wise Men Center for Strategic Studies.

"Up to now we didn't observe Islamic countries in taking a joint step to conduct an effective counter-terrorism because they have been facing with a bigger danger of sectarianism," he said.

"The Muslim world should first overcome their internal issues and conflicts which have originated from sectarianism," he added.

The 13th OIC summit decided to hold the next meeting in Banjul, Gambia's capital, at a date to be determined later. Endit