The occupation of Iraq and Israel's treatment of Palestinians threatens 'the very survival' of Muslims around the world, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said on Monday.

He was speaking at the opening of the foreign ministers' meeting of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference at Putrajaya, Malaysia. The OIC meeting begins on October 16.

The challenges and dangers facing the Islamic world are probably unequalled in modern history, said OIC Secretary-General Abdelouhed Belkziz.

Belkziz said the Muslim nations lacked political and economic coordination. 

The joint political action of Muslim countries lacked the vigour and potency to face the huge challenges facing them today, he said. The economic situation, he added, was no better given the huge non-Muslim economic blocs that dominate the world today. "Yet we have not achieved a modicum of true economic coordination." 

After mentioning the situation in Iraq, the suffering of the Iraqi people and the long-standing Palestinian issues, he stressed: "Islam was and remains in the forefront of religions that accord prominence to human dignity, stress the sanctity of human life and encourage virtues and the highest of human values." 

The two-day meeting will finalise the agenda for the leaders summit on Oct. 16-17.

Some 35 heads of state or government, including Iyad Allawi, the new head of the US-backed governing  council in Iraq, are due to attend, making it the largest gathering of Muslim leaders since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.  Also invited are UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Agencies