The 43rd session of the Foreign Ministers Council of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) opened in Tashkent’s Palace of Symposiums on 18 October 2016.

The 43rd session of the Foreign Ministers Council of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) opened in Tashkent’s Palace of Symposiums on 18 October 2016.

The Foreign Ministers Council is one of the important structures of the OIC. At its 42nd session that took place in Kuwait city, a decision was adopted to hold the next session in the city of Tashkent.

In accordance with a resolution dated 19 August 2016 of the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, thorough preparations were made for this forum. All conditions were created for holding the session’s events.

The ministers of foreign affairs of the member states of the OIC, the heads of its subsidiary organisations and specialised institutions, special representatives of the USA, France, Italy, Great Britain and Switzerland at the OIC and representatives of such prestigious international organisations as the UN, OSCE, the Arab League, the Economic Cooperation Organisation and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia took part in the session’s work.



The session was opened with a speech by the chairman of the 42nd session of the OIC Foreign Ministers Council, the First Deputy Prime Minster and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Kuwait Shaikh Sabah Khalid Al-Hamad al-Sabah.

A sura from the Koran was recited. Deep condolences were expressed to the nation of Uzbekistan on the passing away of the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov.

At the opening ceremony of the session, Acting President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev made a speech.

The OIC Secretary General Iyad bin Amin Madani said that the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, had carried out a great deal of work for Uzbekistan to have a worthy place within the ranks of the world’s developed states and had made a big contribution to the development of the religion of Islam. And this noble work is being continued in a consistent manner.

The session takes place under the theme “Education and Enlightenment: the Path to Peace and Creativity” as proposed by the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov.



Uzbekistan is a country along the central part of the Great Silk Road and is one of the cradles of ancient civilisations. Great ancestors of Uzbek people such as Imam Bukhari, Iso Termizi, Muhammad Shashi, Bahauddin Nakshband, Abu Rayhan Beruni, Abu Ali ibn Sino (Avicenna), Mirzo Ulughbek and Alisher Navoiy made great contributions to the development of world science and the religion of Islam.

In the years of independence, Uzbek people’s religious values were restored. The Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the law “On freedom of worship and religious organizations” guarantee freedom of worship. Broad possibilities have been created to get religious education and to observe religious rites. The Koran and other holy books have been published in thousands of copies in the Uzbek language. Holy shrines in Uzbekistan have been improved.

There are Tashkent Islamic University and Tashkent Islamic Institute as well as a number of special educational establishments working. Scholars of the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies and the Imam Bukhari international centre in Samarqand are conducting research into the heritage handed down by Uzbek people’s great ancestors and are popularizing it.

Every year more than 11 thousand Uzbeks make hajj and umrah pilgrimages.



Thanks to its great social, spiritual and economic potential, Uzbekistan has an important place in the OIC. This country became a member of the OIC in the year 1996. Now the scale of international cooperation noticeably expanded.

The OIC supported a conference of the “6+2” group for a peaceful resolution of the Afghanistan problem. The conference took place in Tashkent at the initiative of Uzbekistan’s First President. The OIC also approved of the creation of a nuclear-free zone in Central Asia.

The OIC’s Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ISESCO declared the city of Tashkent a capital of Islamic culture in 2007.

Representatives of the OIC as international observers took part in the 2007 and 2015 presidential elections and 2009 and 2014 parliamentary elections in the Republic of Uzbekistan. They also attended an international conference entitled “The historical heritage of scholars and thinkers of the medieval East, its role and significance for the development of the modern civilization” (Samarqand, May 2014) and a food conference in Uzbekistan (Tashkent, June 2014).

Uzbekistan regards the OIC as a generally-recognized forum uniting Muslim states. And this country sees its chairmanship in the OIC Foreign Ministers Council as the recognition of the country’s superb contribution to the development of the Islamic civilization. Therefore, Uzbekistan has set itself the task of helping in every way possible to boost the OIC’s role in the world.

“Uzbekistan is our nearest neighbour, a fraternal country and a reliable partner. Today our relations are developing intensively. New promising projects are being drawn up in such spheres as transport and transit, machine-building, metals, customs control and agriculture. Large-scale and effective cooperation between our countries serves primarily to raise the prosperity of our peoples and that in the entire region,” says the minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Yerlan Idrisov.

The State of Kuwait handed over the chairmanship of the Foreign Ministers Council to Uzbekistan. This country’s minister of foreign affairs will be chairing the Foreign Ministers Council of the OIC until this council’s next session in 2017.