Afghan leader cancels meeting with Muslim body

Afghan President Hamid Karzai adjusts his hat during a news conference in Kabul January 31, 2010.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai canceled a meeting on Wednesday with a major Muslim group in Saudi Arabia that had been aimed at helping reconciliation efforts with the Taliban.

The meeting was called off because Karzai had reservations about the agenda, a senior official from the group, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), said.

However, an Afghan diplomat traveling with Karzai told Reuters the meeting was canceled because the Afghan delegation wanted to visit Medina, the burial place of the Prophet Mohammad.

Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, seeking help in his efforts to reconcile with the Taliban.

The canceled meeting would have addressed the OIC's role in containing Afghan tensions and followed up on OIC efforts to organize a conference for Islamic scholars from different Afghan religious authorities, the OIC said.

"We understand that Saudi Arabia supports this drive by the OIC for debate among Afghan religious leaders as a means to convince the Taliban to openly abandon al Qaeda," the senior OIC official told Reuters by telephone from Jeddah.

Reuters could not immediately reach OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu or Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer.

With the support of Saudi King Abdullah, the Saudi-based OIC has sought to play a bigger role in solving Muslim world crises through debate among various branches of Islam. OIC groups 57 Muslim states.

RECONCILIATION DRIVE

King Abdullah held talks with Karzai on Wednesday, the official SPA news agency reported. It did not elaborate.

Saudi Arabia has said little about Karzai's visit, which followed his call at a London conference last week for Saudi Arabia to help bring peace to Afghanistan.

Riyadh has arranged and hosted talks between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives in the past and Karzai, in remarks published by Saudi newspapers, said any message from King Abdullah would have a big impact on the Taliban and other Islamist movements.

But Riyadh has said the Taliban must deny sanctuary to Saudi-born al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose group waged bloody attacks against the kingdom in the past, before it will agree to act as a mediator in any Afghan peace deal.

And Mustafa Alani, of Dubai-based think tank Gulf Research Center, said Saudi Arabia had no intention to mediate because the risks were too high and the rewards unclear.

In cooperation with Washington, Riyadh lent financial support to the Afghan Mujahideen in its fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s.

But that support came under scrutiny after the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. landmarks, claimed by al Qaeda.

(Additional reporting by Asma Alsharif in Jeddah; Writing by Souhail Karam; Editing by Noah Barkin)