Pakistan has underscored the need for stabilising the chaotic situation in West Asia and the Levant through a “consistent dialogue” between regional states, supported by major powers and promoted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
“It (the dialogue) can help to promote fair and durable solutions to the conflicts and disputes in the region, and build consensus on collective counter terrorism actions, based on the principles of the UN Charter and the divinely ordained unity of the world’s Muslims — the Ummah,” Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, told the Security Council on Tuesday.
In this regard, Ambassador Lodhi drew attention to Pakistan’s contribution to promoting harmony in the region as illustrated by the recent mediatory mission undertaken by Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to Riyadh and Teheran.
The Pakistani envoy, who was speaking in a debate on the Middle East situation, also said the situation in Iraq, Syria and Yemen could not eclipse the Palestinian question, which was one of the core causes of the rise and spread of popular anger and alienation across the Arab and Muslim world.”
Extremist ideologies and violent groups in the Middle East will be difficult to defeat until the essence of their narrative “the injustices against Muslim peoples, especially the Palestinians” is justly and effectively not addressed,” she said.
“The Middle East, the cradle of civilization, is today the centre of conflict, terrorism and massive human suffering,” the Pakistani envoy pointed out.
Recent events had reinforced the conclusion that there would be no peace or stability in the Holy Land unless Israel accommodated a viable Palestine State, based on the pre-1967 borders, with Al Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, ambassador Lodhi said.
Unfortunately, Israel had adopted an inflexible policy including the continued takeover of more and more Palestinian land for Israeli settlements, thereby increasingly rendering a two-state solution more and more difficult to achieve. “We share the Secretary General’s profound concern at reports of Israel’s authorization of the largest land grab in over a year.”
In this regard, Ambassador Lodhi stressed that the Security Council mobilise the political will to implement its own binding resolutions requiring Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories.
Noting that the wider regional instability stemmed from foreign interventions in Iraq and elsewhere, giving way to disorder spread by Da’ish and other terrorist groups, she said those groups must be defeated.
“To succeed in this, the states of the region, with the international community’s assistance, must reach the political decisions to end the civil war and suffering in Syria and build a path to peace responsive to the aspirations of all its people; achieve an inclusive structure for governance where there is a need to accommodate the rights and interests of all religious and ethnic groups; halt the fighting in Yemen and rebuild this impoverished and broken country,” she said.
“Success requires, first and foremost, an end to regional hostility and rivalry that is polarizing the Middle East. The new and revived tensions are toxic not only for the countries already engulfed in conflict; it could encompass other regional states, home to diverse denominations of Islam and other religions.”
