National

Ishaq Dar expresses Pak’s deep concern about the ongoing genocide & starvation of Gaza people over the last several months

BANJUL/ISLAMABAD, May 03 (SABAH): Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar participated in the preparatory Meeting of Foreign Ministers to the Islamic Summit of the OIC held in Banjul, The Gambia. The theme of this year’s Summit is “Enhancing Unity and Solidarity through Dialogue for Sustainable Development”.

According to a statement issued by Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, during the Meeting, Pakistan was unanimously elected as the Vice-Chair of the Bureau of Foreign Ministers’ Preparatory Meeting for 15th Islamic Summit of the OIC.

In his remarks, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar congratulated the Gambian Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara, on assuming the Chairmanship of the Session and 15th Islamic Summit and appreciated the role of the outgoing chair, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister expressed Pakistan’s deep concern about the ongoing genocide and starvation of Gaza people over the last several months due to relentless Israeli war against the people of Gaza.

Ishaq Dar stressed upon the need for immediate implementation of the following measures: 

* Immediate end of indiscriminate use of force and inhuman siege of Gaza by Israel;

* Unimpeded flow of humanitarian assistance to the besieged people of Gaza;

* An immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza;

* Return of the displaced Palestinian people to their homeland;

* Accountability for the war crimes committed by Israel with impunity;

* The UN Security Council to ensure immediate implementation of its Resolution 2728 for cessation of hostilities;

* Earliest resumption of an inclusive, transparent, and irreversible peace process to secure the realization of the two-state solution;

* Reactivation of OIC’s Ministerial Committee on Israeli aggression against the Palestinians. Pakistan offered to assist the Committee’s efforts; and

* Stoppage of all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and relinquishment of all usurped Palestinian properties.

Ishaq Dar reaffirmed Pakistan’s full support for the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and stated that the only permanent solution to the current crisis lies in the creation of a secure, viable, contiguous, and sovereign state of Palestine based on the pre-June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister strongly condemned the oppressive actions in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) including extrajudicial killings and media blackouts. He pledged Pakistan’s unwavering diplomatic support for the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination as mandated by relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.

Ishaq Dar stressed the imperative of joint action by the OIC to confront rising Islamophobia, which is manifested by an increasing number of incidents of discrimination, violence, and incitement against Muslims around the world. He stated that while global social media platforms have set for themselves a clear understanding and the responsibility of content relating to “Antisemitism” and “Holocaust denial”, same is not the case for blasphemous and anti-Islamic content that is responsible for widespread distress among Muslims and the global wave of Islamophobia. The Deputy Prime Minister urged the OIC to formulate a joint strategy to influence global information networks/platforms particularly the Global Social Media platforms to harmonize their application of content regulation policies for blasphemous, anti-Islamic and Islamophobic content.

During the preparatory meeting, the OIC Foreign Ministers adopted the report of the Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) and finalized various documents, including the Resolution on the Issue of Palestine, the Final Communique of the OIC Summit Conference and the Banjul Declaration.