Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The Saudi Arabian capital of Jeddah hosted a presentation of the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games (ISG) to be held in Baku.

The presentation was made by Konul Nurullayeva, Head of International Relations at the Azerbaijani National Olympic Committee, and Mehman Karimov, member of the Organizing Committee of Baku-2017 ISG, at an extraordinary meeting of the General Assembly and Executive Committee of the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation.

The meeting participants also watched a presentation by Vice President of Azerbaijan National Taekwondo Federation Nagi Safarov. The presentation related to the Islamic countries taekwondo championships, which will be held in Baku in April.

The meeting also featured discussions on inclusion of judo in the program of the fourth ISG, which was proposed by Vice President of Azerbaijan National Judo Federation Asif Asgarov.

Baku will host the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017. The decision was made in the eighth report-election General Assembly of the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation held in Jeddah.

The Games, which will bring together athletes from 57 countries, will be held under the slogan "Solidarity is our power". More than 160 Azerbaijani sportsmen will participate in the Games. The Muslim religion of all athletes is not a pre-condition for participation in the competition.

The ISG is a multinational, multi-sport event involving the elite athletes of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is the second largest inter-governmental organization after the UN with 57 member states spread over four continents.

The first of the ISG tournaments was held in 2005 in Saudi Arabia with an Olympic-style tournament aimed at showing Muslim sports prowess and featuring 6,000 athletes.