President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has on Wednesday departed to attend the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC)’s 14th Summit, due to be held in Saudi Arabia by month end.

The summit is to be held on 31 May in Mecca.

While Maldives Minister of Foreign Affairs is also set to attend the summit having arrived in the kingdom on Tuesday, RaajjeMV also understands that the Maldivian President will be performing Umrah after concluding his trip and returning to Maldives.

President’s Office on Wednesday revealed that the venue of the summit will afford the delegation from Maldives the opportunity to positively engage with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to enhance bilateral relations and development cooperation.

Since its inception in 1969, OIC has been known to be the aspiration to speak as the collective voice of the Islamic community. The summit is to gather heads of states and governments of countries with a majority of Muslims.

Discussions on some of the pressing issues surfacing for the global Muslim community including prevalence of Islamophobia are to be held during the summit.

Other discussions to be held include on regional peace in the Middle East as well as many such issues and difficulties that the Muslim community face across the globe.

While summits are held once in every three years in accordance with the OIC charter to discuss matters of importance to the Muslim community, it currently comprises of 57 member state representing over a billion people.