Pakistan expects UN to resolve Palestine dispute: Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the United Nations Security Council will no longer be in a position to “fudge” the Palestine dispute and the body would have to act over it.

In an interview with TRT World, state-owned Turkish channel, the foreign minister said: “People who believe in the fundamental rights, must speak up. They cannot sit on the fence anymore because enough is enough.”

About the recent Israeli attacks on Palestine, Qureshi said the people who had been silent, who had been sitting on the fence were jolted to react after witnessing a grim situation in the region.

“Nobody expected that from the 27th day of Ramadan, things would take such a shape that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation would be galvanised into action […] the Arab League would be galvanised and the NAM would be mobilised. Nobody saw such a reaction,” he recalled.

The foreign minister said that such a reaction resulted in the convening of an unprecedented emergency session of the UN General Assembly to discuss the grave human rights situation in Palestine.

A ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas and other Gaza-based fighter groups in the Strip on Friday, but there have been tensions in occupied East Jerusalem where Israel’s police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and fired tear gas at worshippers the same day after prayers.

The Egyptian-brokered ceasefire came into effect after 11 days of relentless Israel’s bombing of the besieged enclave and thousands of rockets launched into Israel by Hamas, which governs the Strip.

Responding to a question regarding the diplomatic efforts of Pakistan in securing the development, Qureshi replied the first thing Islamabad wanted to secure was a ceasefire to restrict civilian casualties.

The foreign minister who spent much of the last week on a diplomatic mission to secure a ceasefire had a “one-point agenda: cessation of hostilities. Once that [goal] was achieved, the rest would flow from it”.

About the proposal of deployment of a protective force under the UN, the foreign minister said Pakistan would discuss the idea with the UNGA president.

Commenting on the United States’ role in ending the conflict, Qureshi said the US exercises influence over Israel. “They should play a more active role in convincing them [Israel] that what are they doing [in occupying Palestinian land] is unacceptable to the world,” he said.

Responding to a question involving the Afghan peace process, he said Pakistan and Turkey want to see the peace process move ahead […] “and Washington, the Afghan people and the whole world wanted this”.

Drawing similarities between the situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir and Palestine, the foreign minister said in both regions had been demanding their “right to self-determination, both were crying about democratic restructuring, and both were witnessing threats of ethnic cleansing”.

Both issues had been the oldest items on the unresolved agenda of the UN, he added.

1 COMMENT

  1. The UN is impotent and the US President, US and European political and public figures under the duress of world’s biggest and most lethal Mafia, the Goliath Mafia.
    No one is able to bring justice to Palestinians.
    The True Jews disown the “Roman Outpost in Palestine ” as Israhyeel. For the True Jews those European invaders/occupiers of Palestine are defamers of Judaism and Jews. True Jews lay no false claim being true, thus lay no claim on Palestine nor go to live there. True Jews have come out recently in New York and London to show their Judaic concern for the oppressed Palestinians.
    This land has endured invasion and occupation by the Godless, lawless Europeans twice before and this is the third time. Everyone can see the European Invaders/settlers of this land to be behaving exactly as did the Godless, lawless European invaders/ settlers of this land previously.
    This land will be free of the European invaders/settlers as happened twice before. So just like 1700 years ago this land shall be free with the fall of the Roman Empire of this day.

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