OIC changes name to stress cooperation

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, based in the Saudi city of Jeddah, on Tuesday changed its name to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

The Islamist world's largest grouping said in a statement that the name change was approved by its 57 members at a conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, of its foreign ministers.

The change comes almost 42 years after the founding of the inter-governmental organisation in reaction to the August 1969 arson attack on Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest in Islam.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has served as its secretary general since January 2005.

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