The world's Muslim nations yesterday urged the US to drop its support for the latest Israeli peace plan and called for a new UN mandate on Iraq, describing the situation in the Middle East as "alarming". An emergency meeting of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the world's biggest grouping of Muslim states, said in Putrajaya that President George W Bush's endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan was "detrimental to the peace process". The strong statement by the OIC, represented by 13 nations holding key portfolios within the organisation, reflects widespread anger in the Muslim world over Bush's backing of Sharon's plan to keep some Arab land captured in the 1967 war. "We emphasise that the plan and the support of the US thereto are detrimental to the peace process in the Middle East as they are denying the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people," the communiqué said. It called the plan "counterproductive to the objectives of the roadmap", the US-backed plan for peace in the Middle East which outlines an independent Palestinian state negotiated by reciprocal Israeli and Palestinian steps. The OIC urged the UN Security Council to "consider the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force or an international monitoring mechanism" to ensure the implementation of the roadmap, but offered no details of how this would be done. OIC chairman Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told the opening session that Sharon's plan with US backing "can literally wreck the entire peace process in the Middle East", describing the overall situation there as "extremely alarming". On Iraq, the OIC stressed the importance of a "central role" for the UN and urged the Security Council to adopt a new resolution which would give it a mandate to ensure "the restoration of sovereignty and full independence to the Iraqi people". **PHOTO CAPTION*** Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) chairman Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (C) attends the opening ceremony of a special meeting on the Middle East in Putrajaya. (AFP)