Muslim Group Pledges Troops, Cash for Bosnia
Muslim leaders ended a summit in Morocco with a promise of financial and diplomatic support for Bosnia’s Muslims and a threat of economic measures against countries that support their Serbian adversaries.
A special statement on Bosnia-Herzegovina by the heads of state of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, which closed Thursday, pledged to pool the wealth of its 52 members in defense of Bosnia’s Muslims.
It urged members to donate between $300,000 and $5 million to a special fund for Bosnia and offered to increase the number of Muslim troops serving with the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia.
The war in Bosnia dominated the three-day summit and united the OIC’s diverse members, which have rarely achieved cohesion since the first Islamic summit 25 years ago.
The statement, echoing a resolution by foreign ministers, said the Saudi Arabia-based OIC regarded the U.N. ban on supplying arms to the mainly Muslim Bosnian government as legally and morally void.
A final resolution also included an implicit threat to defy the U.N. arms embargo.
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