ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday urged Muslim nations to unite over Israel’s airstrikes on Palestinian civilian neighbourhoods to confront the Jewish state and solve the decades-old Middle East crisis with justice and a humanitarian approach.
Speaking to reporters in Multan, Qureshi said that Prime Minister Imran Khan, during his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, met with the secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and stressed the need to unite the Muslim nations on the issue using the platform.
“We [Muslim countries] can raise our voices individually [but] the issue will be noted [forcefully] when all 57 member states of the organisation voice their support. A lone Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia cannot do anything,” he maintained.
Israel continued its bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip early on Wednesday, targeting several neighbourhoods after lone rockets were fired from the enclave.
It is the most intense airstrikes in Gaza since the bombardment in 2014. Health authorities in Gaza said at least 35 Palestinians — including 10 children — were killed in airstrikes on the Strip since late on Monday. At least 233 others were injured.
The violence escalated after Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site — attacking Palestinian worshippers using rubber-coated steel bullets, stun grenades and tear gas over the weekend.
Pakistan condemned the violence the called on “the international community to put an end to the blatant use of force and flagrant violation of human rights of the Palestinian people,” a Foreign Office statement said.
The OIC, after convening a virtual emergency session on Tuesday to discuss the “aggression by Israel”, said that it “condemns in the strongest terms the repeated attacks”.
The body also demanded that “relevant international actors,” including the United Nations General Assembly, should implement resolutions and recommendations and “activate the necessary mechanisms to stop these violations.”
Today, Qureshi said he had also received a call from his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, who explained to him the proposals that would be discussed and presented in his meeting with the top Saudi diplomat.
The proposals included calling an emergency ministerial session of the OIC on the situation in Palestine and calling an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), he said.
Cavusoglu had asked for his opinion to which Qureshi had voiced his support after consulting with Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“This is a matter of our belief, human rights, international law and challenging an apartheid regime and we are ready to do that,” said Qureshi.
During his visit to the kingdom along with the prime minister, Qureshi said thaat he had a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud. Giving details of the meeting, he said a delegation of senior Saudi officials would visit Pakistan after Eidul Fitr and have a meeting with senior officials at the Foreign Office.
“Their [Saudi] foreign minister will visit Pakistan keeping those talks as the basis,” said the foreign minister, adding he had requested Al-Saud to visit for at least two days and the latter had agreed.
Qureshi also added that on the basis of the institutional arrangement, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would also visit Pakistan soon. “It was decided that we have to give our relationship a new direction towards economic cooperation,” he further disclosed.
Qureshi further said Riyadh decided to inject $500 million in Pakistan’s energy sector to further strengthen it.
The Saudi assistance would help overcome the imbalance in the energy sector, he said, adding the investment is meant for alternate and renewable energy including solar, wind and hydel power.
The money would improve the country’s energy mix — a group of different primary energy sources — balance, he said. It would also help lower the tariff gradually and would impact the economy positively.
He said that Saudi funding would also focus on infrastructure development and investment in water resource projects.
Qureshi said that the three-day Saudi visit was made on the invitation of the crown prince and it helped defuse the nefarious designs of detractors.
He said that Pakistan enjoys brotherly relations with Saudi Arabia, however, the recent initiative of a supreme council brought it from an ad-hoc basis to institutional arrangement.
He further said there would be regular engagement under the council and that it would have three pillars: a security and political pillar to be led by Pakistan’s foreign minister; economic outreach to be led by Pakistan’s finance minister; cultural, information and communication cooperation to be led by Pakistan’s minister for information and culture.
The foreign minister further said that Saudi allocated a special labour quota for Pakistan-national workers under its 2030 Vision that involved massive investments. He said that the new jobs opportunities would benefit hundreds of thousands of people.
Qureshi said that the issue of visas with Kuwait and the problems faced by Pakistani families living in the sheikhdom have also been resolved.
He said that there was a ban on the export of Pakistani oranges to Iran for the past 12 years which has now been lifted and it would benefit our farmers, exporters and the national economy.
