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Founded in 1971 to promote solidarity and cooperation between Islamic countries, it has (at February 2003) 57 members and three states with observer status. Its supreme organ is the Conference of the Heads of State, which meets every three years, and its Conference of Foreign Ministers meets annually. Its headquarters is in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (the state which provides most of the OIC\'s funding, and therefore wields considerable influence within the Organization). Various of the OIC\'s members often find themselves at odds with each other, sometimes seriously, which obstructs much by way of common action. However, some observers have detected somewhat greater cohesion within the Organization during the 1990s. |
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