By IPS Correspondents
ABU DHABI, Dec 12 1997 (IPS)

By steering clear of contentious issues, the eighth summit of the 55-member Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Tehran ended on a note of optimism this week.

The summit’s final declaration concentrated on principles rather than hard issues. It papered over the differences that plague the OIC.

Muslim leaders gathered in the Iranian capital denounced cultural invasion and all forms of terrorism. The declaration stressed on the right of women to live in dignity and the need for “dialogue and understanding among cultures and religions”.

The faltering Middle East peace process, Gulf security, Turkey’s military links with Israel and the Turkish incursion into northern Iraq — issues on which consensus eluded the summit found no direct mention in the ‘Tehran Declaration’.

The three-day summit, from Dec. 9 to 11, was the biggest gathering of Muslim leaders in Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran, as host, used the summit to prove the failure of U.S attempts to isolate the country.

With key U.S. allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which had stayed away from last month’s Doha economic conference held with U.S backing, trooping to Iran, Arab resentment with the United States was obvious.

Iran has been a major beneficiary with former opponents in the Arab world ready to mend fences with a country long accused of sponsoring Islamic radicalism in the region.

Iranian leaders reminded the summit over and over again that the United States was not willing to force Israel to abide by the terms of its agreement with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

However, while strong anti-Israeli sentiment dominated the summit, it is unlikely that the Islamic world will take Iran’s lead in all issues during its term as chairman of the OIC for the next three years.

Turkey, the only Islamic country to continue dealing with Israel, ignored pressure to reconsider two military agreements signed in 1996 even though it was widely criticised at the conference.

In a compromise between Iran and its Arab neighbours across the Gulf, the declaration made no direct reference to the controversial issue of Gulf security which has been handed over to the United States, but called for a panel of Muslim experts to discuss how to achieve “solidarity and security of Islamic states”.

The declaration made a veiled criticism of Afghanistan’s Taliban militia, which controls more than two-thirds of the war- torn country.

Although three OIC members Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recognise the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government, Iran has been very suspicious of the militia, accusing it of plans to destabilise Iran’s eastern border areas under instruction from the United States.

The conference was attended by heads of state or their deputies of every OIC member country. The notable absentees were Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Hussein and Morocco’s King Hassan, the previous chairman of the OIC.

An Iranian academic living in the UAE, however, believes “Iran has now become the symbol of Islam”. In his view the summit was Iran’s opportunity to repair its tarnished international image and advance its goal to be the regional powerbroker.

Iranian President Syed Mohammed Khatami’s speech at the conference in which he outlined a strategy that would enable Muslim countries to formulate a world view which would help them preserve their unique identities while dealing with the challenges and opportunities of modern life, was received well.

According to a Western diplomat here, “the Gulf Arab States are encouraged by Khatami, with even the most conservative state (Saudi Arabia) willing to give Iran a chance.”

Iran worked hard to ensure the conference’s success. Anti-U.S graffiti that is widely found across Tehran was conspicuously absent around the conference venue and hotels where delegates were staying.

The world’s media instead concentrated on the fissures they perceived within the Iranian leadership between the moderates in government and the so-called conservative clergy. Supreme leader Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei’s repeated calls for the

“rejection” of the West was cited as evidence of a “power struggle”.

But Iran watchers here think it would be an exaggeration to say that the two leaders presented a view of divisions within the leadership. Both Khatami and Khamenei used the same tones while denouncing Israel and calling on OIC members to turn their back on the peace process, they assert.

Instead Mr Khatami’s more subtle approach, a Bahrain-based analyst, thinks shows that the emerging generation of Iranian leaders have been able to anchor their revolutionary message on sounder and more comprehensive historic, theoretical and philosophical foundations.

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