His Excellency Dato’ Sri Anifah Aman, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia, accompanied by several senior officials of the Ministry, arrived in Tashkent on 17 October 2016 to participate in the 43th Session of the Council of Foreign Minister of the Organization of Islamic Conference (43rd ICFM) which was held from 18 to 19 October 2016. This was his 2nd time visiting Uzbekistan as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia. His last visit to the country was in 2010.
In his address during the plenary session of the 43rd ICFM, His Excellency Minister congratulated and stated Malaysia’s full support to the government of Uzbekistan on the latter’s chairmanship of the Council of Foreign Minister. In line with the Meeting’s theme, Education and Enlightenment – Path to Peace and Creativity, His Excellency Minister stressed the importance of the cooperation in education between member states to enable growth, development and progress amongst the people especially the youths. This will minimalize the margin between groups facing economic inequality and social injustices and will deter them from joining radical ideology which is currently the main problem in the Muslim world.
On issues related to Palestine, Malaysia renewed its commitment and continuing support towards Palestine to see the country be freed from the long-time oppression by Israel. As a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Malaysia has initiated and organized three Arria-formula meetings since July 2015 which focused on the protection of Palestinian civilians and Israelis illegal settlement as obstacles to peace and two-state solutions.
Apart from His Excellency Minister, the 43rd ICFM was also attended by His Excellency Tan Sri Dr. Syed Hamid Albar who is currently the Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) for Myanmar. His Excellency Tan Sri Dr. Syed Hamid was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia from 1999 to 2008.