Oic to open office in brussels

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) will open an office in Brussels, its Turkish head said yesterday. "I will meet with Belgium's foreign minister to discuss it as soon as I proceed from Washington DC to Brussels," OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told reporters. Ihsanoglu pointed to how US President Barack Obama said this month in a speech in Cairo, Egypt that he wants to have a new cooperation and open a new page with the Islamic world and spoke of several initiatives and projects. "My visit to the US is related to this," he added. Ihsanoglu is visiting Washington at the invitation of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He also met with Madeleine Albright, a former secretary of state who was Obama's foreign policy adviser before he was elected. The OIC head later attended a dinner at the Turkish Embassy. He was to meet with Clinton on Monday, but the meeting was postponed to Tuesday due to Clinton's broken elbow. Ihsanoglu spoke briefly with Clinton in Cairo and Obama in Istanbul during a reception hosted by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as part of Obama's landmark official visit to Turkey in early April.