The European Union Tuesday said it is in contact with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and is ready to collaborate with the Jeddah-based 57-member Islamic body on the issue of the repeated desecration of the Quran in Europe.
“We have been in contact with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretariat and their permanent mission in Brussels to understand the OIC’s next step on this issue,” EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, Nabila Massrali, told a news conference in Brussels today.
“The EU has well-established collaboration with the OIC and we are open to their suggestions on concrete engagement. At this point of time, we have not received any official request for meetings. So we are waiting for their suggestions on our meeting with them,” she said.
“The EU is basically ready to collaborate with the OIC” stressed Massrali.
She faced a barrage of questions by reporters on the issue during the press conference.
Asked by a reporter if the burning of the Quran should be made illegal in EU member states, she replied “that is not for me to say ,” adding that “we don’t believe that everything that is legal is ethical.” In reply to another question as to why the EU has not explicitly condemned the repeated burnings of the Quran in Sweden and Denmark, Massrali evaded the question saying “we have reacted three times to the burning of the Quran and we have formulated the statement as we have which is extremely clear and extremely strong reaction to the situation and we are totally rejecting the burning of the holy books and the Quran.” The spokesperson referred to a statement by EU High Representative Josep Borrell on 26 July in which he said, “The desecration of the Quran, or of any other book considered holy, is offensive, disrespectful and a clear provocation. Expressions of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance have no place in the European Union. ” Meanwhile, The OIC Council of Foreign Ministers released a resolution in Jeddah on Sunday regarding the repeated crimes of desecration of copies of the Holy Quran that took place in Sweden and Denmark.
Among other things, the 35-point resolution instructed “the OIC Group in world capitals (especially the capitals in which blatant acts against copies of Quran and other sacred Islamic symbols took place) and international organizations, especially the European Union, to take the necessary measures towards referring this statement to the ministries of foreign affairs and the concerned agencies in those countries and organizations and to clarify the gravity and consequences of persisting in insulting Islamic symbols and sanctities.” It called on “all the OIC Overseas Missions (New York, Geneva, and Brussels) to take the initiative to address, in the respective international organizations, which are accredited to them, these acts of hatred against Islam and its sacred symbols in the interpretation of the relevant conventions as well as the formulation of new international legal texts to this end.”
Source: Kuwait News Agency