ISLAMABAD: At the preparatory meeting of Foreign Ministers to the 15th Islamic Summit of the OIC, Pakistan has called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza and asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to ensure immediate implementation of its Resolution 2728 for cessation of hostilities.

According to a statement of the Foreign Office here on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar participated in the preparatory Meeting of Foreign Ministers to the Islamic Summit of the OIC held on 2 May, 2024 in Banjul, The Gambia.

The theme of this year’s Summit is “Enhancing Unity and Solidarity through Dialogue for Sustainable Development”.

Situation in Gaza: OIC EC convenes extraordinary meeting on 18th

During the meeting, Pakistan was unanimously elected as the Vice-Chair of the Bureau of Foreign Ministers’ Preparatory Meeting for the 15th Islamic Summit of the OIC.

In his remarks, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister 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.

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

He stressed the need for an immediate end to the indiscriminate use of force and inhuman siege of Gaza by Israel; an unimpeded flow of humanitarian assistance to the besieged people of Gaza; and an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.

He also called for the immediate return of the displaced Palestinian people to their homeland and accountability for the war crimes committed by Israel with impunity.

Dar further said the UN Security Council to ensure immediate implementation of its Resolution 2728 for cessation of hostilities; besides calling for the earliest resumption of an inclusive, transparent, and irreversible peace process to secure the realisation of the two-state solution.

Dar also called for the reactivation of OIC’s Ministerial Committee on Israeli aggression against the Palestinians. Pakistan offered to assist the Committee’s efforts; and also called for the stoppage of all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and the relinquishment of all usurped Palestinian properties.

The deputy prime minister and foreign minister 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.

He also 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.

He 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 “anti-semitism” and “Holocaust denial”, the 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 harmonise 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 and finalised various documents, including the Resolution on the Issue of Palestine, the Final Communique of the OIC Summit Conference, and the Banjul Declaration.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024