DUSHANBE, May 18, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- President Emomali Rahmon yesterday afternoon met here with Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), according to presidential press service.

The sides discussed a broad range of issues related to cooperation of Tajikistan with the OIC member nations and implementation of agreements adopted within the Organization.

Tajik leader positively assessed a role of OIC in addressing global challenges and noted that Tajikistan was for raising the OIC status in combating terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking, presidential press service said.

President Rahmon stressed that OIC could play an important role in establishing and strengthening dialogue between cultures in the modern world.  

Dr. Ekmeleddin İhsanoglu (born December 26 1943) is a Turkish science historian and currently the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the second largest public international organization after the United Nations.

İhsanoglu was born in Cairo, Egypt, where he later studied science at the Ain Shams University.  He obtained his PhD from the Faculty of Science at the Ankara University in 1974.

He was founder and chairman of the Department of History of Science at the Faculty of Letters of Istanbul University from 1984 to 2000.  His special interest focuses on culture and scholarship in the Islamic world.  He was lecturer and visiting professor at various universities like University of Exeter, United Kingdom (1975-1977), Ankara University, Faculty of Science (1970-1980), Inönü University, Malatya (1978-1980), Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany (2003).

He is one of the signatories of A Common Word, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding.