Palembang, S Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Secretary General of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (PUIC) Mahmud Erol Kilic has urged Muslim-majority countries to be united in the face of Israeli tirany.

"We must be united to face Israel, stop the expansion of Jewish settlements , and end the blockade of the Gaza Strip," Mahmud said in his speech at the Seventh Conference of PUIC here on Tuesday.

PUIC fully supported Palestine as a sovereign country that could play active roles as a member of the United Nations, after being accepted as a full member of UNESCO earlier, he said.

The PUIC secretary general said Islamic nations wanted to live in a zone that was free from weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, the UN must order Israel to abide by its resolutions concerning nuclear armament.

"We emphasize the rights of each state to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and to fight against terrorism committed by a country or sectarian Muslims," he said.

He also called for in-depth dialogs between Islam and other religions.

Marzuki Alie, the PUIC president and concurrently Indonesia`s house speaker, earlier said PUIC must take a resolute stance against various crimes committed by Israel, including the arrest of Palestine`s House Speaker Dr Aziz Dweik.

"PUIC should give full support to the release of leaders and members of the Palestinian parliament from Israeli prisons and strongly condemn the (Israeli) crimes," Marzuki said.

Meanwhile, Ali Akbar Nateg Nouri, the head of the Iranian delegation to the PUIC conference, said the US aggressions in Afghanistan and Iraq had failed and in fact killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

Some 334 delegates from 40 countries are attending the Seventh Conference of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (PUIC) which has been going on here since January 24 and is to end on January 31, 2012.(*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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