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World Bulletin / News Desk

Head of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (IOC) said Sunday that organization was set to discuss the Syrian crisis as the top item on its agenda during an upcoming emergency summit meeting in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that begins on Tuesday.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told reporters that thousands of people had been killed and hundreds of thousands had been forced to leave their homes in Syria, adding that the Syrian regime continued to kill its own people with heavy weapons, tanks, artillery and aircrafts.

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which does not include troops in its toll, has estimated that some 19,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.

Sources close to the summit meeting have told the Anadolu Agency that the extraordinary meeting would discuss suspension of Syria's membership and that high level officials took up the issue in Jeddah on Saturday but Iran had objected to the idea.

Ihsanoglu also said the situation of Rohingya Muslims would also come up during the two-day summit meeting.