July 5, 2012 News: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will a senior official of the 57-member states organization to the “Moro Leaders’ Assembly” organized by the MILF from July 6-9 inside its administrative base in Darapanan, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.

This was learned from an MILF representative based in Mecca, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who told Luwaran by phone that both the OIC Secretary General, HE Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu,  and his political adviser, HE. Ambassador Kassem Sayed El-Masry will most unlikely come due to prior official commitment and health reasons, respectively.

El-Masry is the Special Envoy of the OIC Secretary General for Peace in the Philippines.

However, the source did not name who the OIC representative will be, except by saying that the choice would only revolve around three personalities namely, Ambassador Daous Talal, head of the Minority Affairs Department of the OIC, his deputy, Taher Ahmad Saif, who is a seasoned diplomat, or the younger Ali Dimirci, who hails, like the OIC Secretary General, from Turkey.

Ali is also the Political Affairs Officer at the General Secretariat of the OIC. He is also assigned as Executive Assistant of the Special Envoy of the OIC Secretary General for Peace in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, the media committee of the assembly that around 100 media outfits or practitioners have already applied for accreditation to the 4-day assembly sponsored by the MILF. About a fifth of them are coming from international wire and cable services, the biggest of which is the Al-Jazeera Channel, which is based in Doha, Qatar.

According to the MILF media advisory, members of the media who have applied for accreditation and already approved will get their identification card (ID) and a souvenir shirt from the Media Accreditation and Facilitation Center situated near the first MILF-BIAF checkpoint just below the Davao-Parang Diversion Road in Crossing Simuay in Sultan Kudarat, town. For those who have not applied yet can apply for accreditation in the same group, so they can be issued IDs for them to be able to get inside the MILF administrative base. Security check is quite strict inside the MILF assembly area.