OIC has 'lost relevance', says Vice President Ansari

Vice President Hamid Ansari on Saturday said the consensus based approach in decision making has rendered the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) "ineffective" and as a result the group has "lost its relevance".

Returning from a five-day visit to Mali and Nigeria, Ansari said the member nations of OIC in bilateral engagements have "always condemned terrorism, recognising that no one could condone it as everyone had become a victim," according to information received here.

Ansari justified the surgical strikes by Indian army on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (Loc) in the wake of the Uri attack and said India could not be a mute "recipient" of terrorist attacks.

"India could not be a recipient of terrorist attacks all the time and do nothing about it. There were some terrorist launch pads identified, and they were neutralised," he said.

The OIC that comprises among others countries like Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh -- has been the most critical international grouping that has been vocal on the Kashmir situation.

But individually several of these countries have condemned the Uri attack and also backed the surgical strikes by the Indian army.

In the context of his five-day visit along with a delegation comprising among others Union Minister of State for Finance Arjun Meghawal, the Vice President said terrorism was a key point of discussion with both Mali and Nigeria as both these "had been victims of very serious kind of terrorist activities", an official release said.

Terming his visit to Mali as the first of its kind at a senior level, the Vice President said that India was keen to work in the areas of human resource development and capacity building. He further said that some new areas were identified like the health sector, solar energy and agriculture.

The Vice President said that the discussions in Nigeria were very productive and there were some new areas like renewable energy, solar alliance, infrastructure development, agriculture, manufacturing, health, science and technology identified for mutual cooperation.

Nigeria has also expressed interest in India's successful space programme, Ansari said.

--IANS

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