KUALA LUMPUR: Iran, Malaysia, Turkey and Qatar are considering tradingamong themselves in gold and through a barter system as a hedge against anyfuture economic sanctions on them, Malaysian Prime Minister MahathirMohamad said on Saturday.
At the end of an Islamic summit in Malaysia, Mahathir praised Iran andQatar for withstanding economic embargoes and said it was important for theMuslim world to be self-reliant to face future threats.
“With the world witnessing nations making unilateral decisions to imposesuch punitive measures, Malaysia and other nations must always bear in mindthat it can be imposed on any of us,” Mahathir said.
United States-allied Arab states Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates(UAE), Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar about2-1/2-years ago over allegations it backs terrorism, a charge Doha denies.Iran, meanwhile, has been hit badly after the US reimposed sanctions on itlast year.
“I have suggested that we re-visit the idea of trading using the gold dinarand barter trade among us,” Mahathir said, referring to the Islamicmedieval gold coin.
“We are seriously looking into this and we hope that we will be able tofind a mechanism to put it into effect.”
The leaders agreed they needed do more business among themselves and tradein each other’s currencies.
The summit, which was snubbed by Saudi Arabia, was criticised forundermining the Saudi-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),which represents 57 Muslim-majority nations.
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Malaysia said all the OIC members had been invited to the Kuala Lumpursummit but only about 20 showed up. By the fourth and final day of thesummit, no joint statement had been released. The summit had been expectedto discuss major issues affecting Muslims, including Palestine, Kashmir andthe plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and China’s camps for UighurMuslims in its western Xinjiang region.
Without naming any country, Mahathir said there was concern that Muslims innon-Muslim countries were forced to undergo assimilation.
“We support integration but assimilation to the extent of shedding ourreligion is unacceptable,” he said.
At a news conference, he said the summit participants had been told thatUighurs were being detained in China. “We have to hear the state, we haveto hear the people who complain, then only it will be fair,” he said.
He called India’s new citizenship act unfortunate. The act facilitates forfaster naturalisation of non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh andPakistan who had settled in India prior to 2015.
