Today in Moscow, senior officials from a group of Muslim countries met with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and a surge of humanitarian aid. This is the second stop by the officials, after their meeting in Beijing yesterday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on the group’s tour of the five Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council.
Tomorrow, Nov. 22, the officials will meet in London with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and also go to Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to unconfirmed media reports. This will leave the United States for their last meeting, bringing with them the moral imperative of the world that the U.S. must change course from backing the genocide in Gaza.
The group comes out of the Nov. 11 meeting in Riyadh of the Arab League and Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and includes ministers and representatives of Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Palestine, and OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha, as well as Türkiye, whose officials were involved in President Erdogan’s trip to Algeria the past two days, and will join up with the group in London.
The purpose of the group’s tour this week was stated succinctly yesterday in Beijing by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud: “The message is clear: The war must stop immediately, we must move to a ceasefire immediately, and relief materials and aid must enter immediately.”
