https://arab.news/bkbt9
- Palestinian territory, encompassing Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has been occupied by Israel since 1967
- Pakistan does not recognize Israel, calls for an independent Palestinian state based on “internationally agreed parameters”
ISLAMABAD: The foreign office said on Friday Pakistan had expressed concern over the “grave situation” in Gaza and Indian-administered Kashmir during foreign minister Ishaq Dar’s participation in a recent United Nations Security Council session on multilateralism and global governance.
Palestinian territory – encompassing the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem – has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Pakistan does not recognize Israel and has consistently called for an independent state of Palestine based on “internationally agreed parameters” and the pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.
Israel’s latest war on Gaza, which began after a Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and displaced almost all of Gaza’s 2 million population, laying waste to swathes of neighborhoods, schools and hospitals.
Earlier this month, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Pakistan, Ishaq Dar, traveled to New York to participate in a high-level meeting of the UNSC on practicing multilateralism and reforming and improving global governance.
“In his remarks [at UNSC meeting], the deputy prime minister and foreign minister emphasized the need for international cooperation and commitment to multilateralism and called for upholding principles of the UN Charter, including self-determination, the non-use of force, respect for sovereignty and the peaceful resolution of disputes,” Shafqat Ali Khan, the spokesperson for the foreign office, said.
“The deputy prime minister and foreign minister expressed deep concerns over the grave situation in occupied Palestine and Gaza and the Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.”
Relations between India and Pakistan have stood frozen since New Delhi’s revocation in 2019 of the special autonomous status of the part of the Himalayan valley of Kashmir it rules. The two neighbors have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.