Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 16
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has urged for resolving the issues of the Islamic world without the interfering foreigners. "The problems of the Islamic world should be settled by Islamic countries without the interfering of foreigners," IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying at a meeting with Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara.
Rouhani called on Turkey and all Islamic countries to join efforts to get use of Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the favor of strengthening the unity in the Islamic world. Rouhani further called for the expansion of bilateral ties with Turkey and increasing the trade turnover between the two countries to $30 billion.
The Iranian president arrived in Istanbul to attend the summit meeting of Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Turkish port city on Wednesday.
President Rouhani held bilateral meetings with heads of states on the sidelines of the 2-day OIC Summit meeting.
Rouhani alongside with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other officials refrained from attending the closing session of the OIC meeting.
The move followed "anti-Iranian" statements in the summit's final announcement, something pushed through by Saudi Arabia, Iranian media outlets said. Before the summit began, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif publicly objected to Saudi Arabia's attempt to introduce "anti-Iranian" articles in the draft declaration of the OIC.