The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday has pledged to set up a humanitarian trust fund for Afghanistan as the country is witnessing a major crisis with millions facing poverty and hunger.
This came at a day-long extraordinary meeting of the 57-member OIC on humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, held in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, the Turkey-based Anadolu Agency reports.
The meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of the OIC member states, and representatives of the UN, US, UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, and several international organizations.
The fund will be established under the aegis of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to serve as a means to channel humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan including in partnership with other international actors.
The participants have also agreed to launch a food security program for Afghanistan in order to mitigate the growing food shortages in the country.
The delegation of Turkmenistan at the OIC extraordinary meeting on humanitarian situation in Afghanistan was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Vepa Hajiyev, according to the press release issued by the Turkmen foreign policy agency.
The Turkmen side stressed the particular importance of providing humanitarian support to the Afghan people.
An OIC resolution released after the meeting included at the initiative of Turkmenistan provisions on the need to continue economic cooperation in order to improve the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and implementation in this regard of large energy, transport and communication projects, such as the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) power transmission line, according to the statement.
Last Tuesday, Turkmenistan delivered humanitarian cargo to neighboring Afghanistan. It consisted of 1,200 tons of various goods produced in Turkmenistan, including textiles and food products, as well as 20 railway tank cars of oil products.