By Ray Chickrie

The Foreign Minister of Guyana, Carl Greenidge, is off to Tashkent, to attend the 43rd Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meeting, which begins on Tuesday in Uzbekistan.In Tashkent, Greenidge will work to solidify ties with the 57-member bloc of the OIC amidst growing tension with Venezuela over a century-old territorial dispute between the two neighbours, and especially after a recent mega oil find off the coast of Guyana, which Caracas is claiming.
Greenidge will also push Guyana’s economic agenda at the meeting.

It is not certain if Greenidge will deliver a statement to the gathering and raise the Venezuela issue. Venezuela has a handful of friends at the OIC, like Iran and Syria.
Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was last week in Turkey, where he held bilateral talks with the leaders — two economic heavyweights of the OIC, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Many OIC members, and especially small Gulf States like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Kuwait, may not know of the intricacies of the Guyana/Venezuela controversy. Guyana can easily sway them on its side, especially because they are vulnerable to larger and ambitious neighbours, some with whom they have outstanding territorial disputes.

Rarely does Guyana send a high-level delegation to such a meeting. This is clearly an indication from Georgetown that a serious intention is underway to engage the 57 Afro-Arab and Asian bloc of mostly Islamic countries.

Besides, Greenidge has hitherto engaged mostly English-speaking African and Commonwealth countries in his efforts to expand Guyana’s global diplomatic outreach, and may now be looking to use the multilateral forum of the OIC to engage members of East and Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

RELATIVELY UNKNOWN
Due to Guyana’s sporadic participation in the OIC since its membership in 1998, Georgetown still remains relatively unknown to the group. Moreover, Guyana does not have diplomatic ties with many French-speaking African countries of the OIC, like Benin, Chad, Cameroon, the Comoros, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, the Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Togo, Tunisia and English-speaking Sudan.

Greenidge, in speaking about the thrust of his ministry to increase Guyana’s global diplomacy, said, “We would have drawn to their attention the various challenges we have; what our plans are as regards UN; our expectations, what arrangements we would like to have with them in terms of economic diplomacy, and what types of cooperation we would want to have with them in terms of educational cooperation, cultural exchanges, the sale of products, opening of markets. And in all those cases, we did agree to establish joint commissions.”

High on the agenda of the 43rd CFM are the issues of Syria; Palestine; terrorism; Islamophobia; economic and social issues such as poverty and education; and more trade and commerce between member states.

In this regard, Uzbekistan, soon to be chairman of the bloc, is calling for improved “mechanisms of cooperation to expand mutually-beneficial trade and investment among OIC states, and with other advanced countries of the world,” says Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Komilov.

This is of particular importance to Guyana, which last week hosted a delegation from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), an organ of the OIC. Greenidge will use the forum to market Guyana, and expand and diversify its economic partners.

Guyana joined the Islamic Bank earlier this year.

The foreign ministers of 26 member countries have officially confirmed their attendance, and the meeting will be attended by OIC Secretary General Iyad Amin Madani, who visited Guyana and Suriname this past September.

President of the Islamic Development Bank Group, Bandar Hajjar, and representatives of a number of international organisations will also participate in the 43rd OIC CFM.

The theme of the meeting, “The education and enlightenment – path towards peace and creativity,” resonates with Uzbekistan’s glorious past in such fields as architecture, science and math; which is why Tashkent wants to use its chairmanship of the group to focus on strengthening the education, scientific and cultural-humanitarian potential of the OIC. (Caribbean News Now)