The 57 foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have called on the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to stop all military operations in Mindanao to give elbow room for relief agencies helping war-affected communities and residents.

This call came at the end of the May 18 to 20 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)’s 37th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) held in Central Asia’s Tajikistan capital of Dushanbe.

They issued OIC Resolution No. 2/37-MM entitled “Question of Muslims in Southern Philippines” which is lumped with the “Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Minorities in Non-OIC Member States.”

While calling on both GRP and MNLF “to preserve the gains achieved since the signing” of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement (FPA), the OIC foreign ministers led by Tajikistan Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi, chairman of the 37th CFM session, also called “for the cessation of all ongoing military operations in Southern Philippines to enable relief agencies to assess the quantity of assistance required by those in need.”

They also renewed the mandate of the OIC’s Peace Committee for Southern Philippines (PCSP) and OIC Secretary General Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanuglo to continue dialogues with GRP and MNLF aimed at ensuring the nearly 14-year old FPA’s full implementation.

To this end, the OIC foreign ministers asked Ihsanuglo to convene a new round of the tripartite meeting involving GRP, MILF under the Islamic group’s auspices to review the work of the two parties’ legal panels drafting a proposed bill for the amendment of Republic Act No. 9054, the Organic Act of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Among others, the OIC foreign ministers welcomed the resumption of the peace talks between GRP and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) even as they voiced regret at the aborted signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) and asked the MNLF and the MILF to strengthened their cooperation and unite their ranks.