New Delhi: Fifty years after India was humiliated and virtually thrown out of the inaugural session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Moroccan Capital Rabat in 1969 after Pakistani insistence, India has now been invited as a “guest of honour” by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the OIC meet to be held at Abu Dhabi on March 1 and 2.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj will represent India and is expected to raise the issue of terrorism during her deliberations there.
Recognising it as a huge diplomatic success, a jubilant New Delhi accepted the invite and termed it as “recognition of the presence of 185 million Muslims in India, their contribution to its pluralistic ethos and of India’s contribution to the Islamic world”.
New Delhi also praised the UAE, saying it saw the invitation “as the desire of the enlightened leadership of the UAE to go beyond our rapidly growing close bilateral ties and forge a true multifaceted partnership at the multilateral and international level”.
Praising New Delhi, the UAE in its statement also referred to the “Friendly Repubic of India with all its international political weight, diverse cultural heritage and important Islamic component”.
