The OIC’s suspension of Syria is to further isolate President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime. (Reuters)

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has decided to suspend Syria's membership. At a summit of Muslim leaders in the holy city of Makkah on Thursday, the members agreed on “the need to end immediately the violence in Syria” and expressed their “deep concern at the massacres and atrocities being suffered by the Syrian people.” The OIC’s Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a press conference that the decision had sent “a strong message from the Muslim world to the Syrian regime.” It was “also a message to the international community, stating that the Muslim world backs a peaceful solution in Syria, wants an end to the bloodshed and refuses to let the problem degenerate into a religious conflict which could spill over” into the region.

In another development later the same day, the UN Security Council declared an end to its UN Supervision Mission in Syria because of the entrenched divisions between the major powers over the conflict-stricken country. The UN mission will end at midnight next Monday but its liaison office in Damscus is still open.