I greet you with the best greeting, the greeting of Islam. May the peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you.

      It gives me pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the people and government of the State of Qatar, in your country and among your brothers and kinsfolk.

      The extraordinary circumstances witnessed by our Muslim nation at this difficult and complicated juncture made it incumbent upon us to meet at this emergency session to discuss the complex situations facing us which threatens with grave consequences and repercussions to the security and stability of the whole world.

      We are meeting at a time when threats are mounting and military escalation is building up towards a regional confrontation whose possible results and effects on the region and the world are difficult to control.

      At the same time, the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is deteriorating incessantly and our Palestinian brethren are being subjected to endless suffering at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces whose oppressive practices cannot be justified or overlooked.

      These situations impose upon us major challenges which we have to confront and raise the level of our joint action in order to tackle them, and limit their possible negative impacts on our Ummah and peoples.

      We are not here to pretend that we have the international political or strategic decision which directs and commands the course of these developments. Yet we certainly can influence the course of such a decision and its possible results and effects, provided that we act together, unify our stands, and adhere to our objectives which are dictated by the common priorities and interests and the principles and values that bind and unite us as one Muslim nation. The endeavor to unify stands and draw concerted and harmonized policies towards the crucial issues currently facing our nation represents the least we are required to do. Indeed, it is the least that our responsibilities and duties towards our countries and peoples oblige us.

      Today our choice in respect of Iraq is not between siding with a peaceful political solution or confronting the repercussions of the developments of events but, in our opinion, it is based on what we can do so that Iraq can get out of this crisis in such way that spare it and spare us a costly price or irremediable grave damages, the consequences of which could never be overcome regardless how good the intentions might be.

      In all our moves, we should focus our efforts on exhausting all peaceful means to solve this question out of our conviction that peace is the difficult challenge which our states should side with, since any other means would lead to creating more crises, conflicts and sufferings that would expose the whole region to dangers, the extent of which only God knows.

      That is why we welcomed Iraq’s acceptance of Resolution 1441 and its cooperation in implementing it. We hope such cooperation continues as it is an important step towards the solution of this problem peacefully.

      In this connection, we reaffirm the necessity to maintain Iraq’s independence, unity, territorial integrity and non-interference in its internal affairs. We also reiterate our firm and principled position regarding the necessity of respecting the sovereignty of the State of Kuwait, its security, territorial integrity and non-interference in its internal affairs.

Your Majesties and Highnesses,
Your Excellencies,
Your Excellency the OIC Secretary General,
Honourable Audience,

      The Palestinian question is passing through a very difficult and critical phase. We hoped that President Yasser Arafat could attend our meeting. But Israel’s continued intransigence and insolence regretfully made that not possible. The Israeli aggression on Palestinian territories is still going on, the siege and killings perpetrated daily against the innocent continue despite the repeated condemnations and appeals, because of Israel’s intransigence and ignoring of its commitments to the international community and its insistence on realizing security and stability through the use of military force, taking advantage of the regional and international conditions to ruin the opportunities of peace.

      Allow me to address in utter, sincere and candid frankness, a message to the pillars of the international community in general and the United States of America in particular, that the continuation of this human tragedy is a stigma in the history of mankind and today’s civilization; that any talk about security, peace and stability in the region cannot materialize without reaching a peaceful, just and durable settlement based on the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions, all of which recognize the regaining of the Palestinian people of their legitimate national rights, on top of which is the right to self-determination and establishing their independent state on their national soil, with Jerusalem as its capital, and the Israeli withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967. Israel cannot always remain above resolutions of international legality and the rules of international law.

      Here we stress once again on the importance of the resolutions adopted by the Ninth Summit regarding the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the creation of an area free of them in the Middle East and urging the international community to ask Israel to comply with the subjection of all its nuclear installations to the International Atomic Energy Agency, since that is crucial to establishing comprehensive and just peace in the region.

Your Majesties and Highnesses,
Your Excellencies,
Your Excellency the OIC Secretary General,
Honourable Audience,

      The present juncture requires that we look forward to the future and have the ability to influence it, without looking back to the faults of the past and their bitter memories, so that our future generations can be more fortunate in building a new world in which peace, stability, freedom and equality prevail.

      May God bestow success on us and guide us along the path of common good.

May the peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you.