Today the 43rd Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation starts in Tashkent.

Apart from the foreign ministers of 26 member states the meeting is attended by Secretary General of the OIC Iyad Ameen Madani, President of the Islamic Development Bank Bandar Hajjar, CEOs of a number of auxiliary and specialized agencies, the special envoys to the OIC of US, France, Italy, UK, Switzerland, as well as representatives of the UN, OSCE, League of Arab States, the Organization for economic cooperation, Conference on Interaction on Confidence-Building measures in Asia (CICA), and many other organizations.

At the opening ceremony the Interim President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev addressed to the participants with a welcoming speech. The Head of State voiced a number of priority affairs on which our country will put an emphasis during the chairmanship Among them: the scientific and technological cooperation, improving mechanisms of cooperation and expansion of mutually beneficial trade and investment relations, peaceful, political and diplomatic methods of conflict resolution.

Over a hundred of resolutions are to be approved during the Tashkent meeting, in particular, the Tashkent Declaration, which will include the political, economic, cultural and humanitarian issues of the OIC agenda, as well as the priorities of the upcoming chairmanship of Uzbekistan in the organization.

The 43rd meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers will be marked with handing over of the chairmanship to the Foreign Ministry of our country in the Council, the second most important body of the OIC. from that moment, the Uzbek Foreign Minister will carry out the functions of the Chairman of the OIC CFM until its next meeting in 2017. The Chairmanship of Uzbekistan will be held under the theme "Education and Enlightenment: The Path to Peace and Creativity."

The OIC was established in September 1969 and includes 57 countries to date. Uzbekistan is a member of the OIC since 1996. In April of this year, Uzbekistan signed and ratified the Charter of the OIC.

In May 2015 the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of Member States of the OIC in Kuwait, it was decided to hold the next meeting of foreign ministers in Tashkent and handing over the chairmanship over this key institution to Uzbekistan.