NEW YORK: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Dr Maleeha Lodhi, speaking during the Security Council session on the debate on the Middle East, urged the international body to observe the resolutions it had passed on the conflicts of Palestine and Kashmir and to live up to it’s responsibilities so that people’s faith could be reinstated in the effectiveness of the UN.
Ambassador Lodhi reaffirmed Pakistan’s continued support to the legitimate aspirations of people living under foreign occupation in Palestine, Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK) and elsewhere and stated that “Conflicts have intensified and new dangers have emerged. while in fundamental ways, the world has gone in reverse”.
Maliha Lodhi, speaking on the current situation of Middle East, said that the two-state solution was in peril. “The plight of the Palestinian people is being betrayed at the altar of narrow and myopic political interests and the quest for peace and stability in the region is becoming more elusive than ever”, she asserted.
Arguing that occupiers have no case to make other than to create alternate facts, Ambassador Lodhi criticised those speakers in the Security Council who tried to deflect attention away from the tragedy of the Palestinian people during the debate.
She voiced Pakistan’s deep concern over the financial constraints faced by United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), whose activities are a lifeline for Palestinian refugees. “The unfortunate situation has been aggravated by the unilateral decision of a major UNRWA donor to withhold more than half it’s funding to the organisation”, Ambassador Lodhi said and urged the international community to ensure sufficient and sustainable financing for UNRWA. “The international community must not fail the Palestinian refugees”, she remarked.
Criticising the recent decision by certain countries to relocate their Embassies to Jerusalem, the Pakistani envoy said that this has further inflamed the security situation in the Middle East.
She asserted that any contrary action was, therefore, not only a manifest violation of the Resolution but also a blatant attempt to legitimise Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem.
The Pakistani envoy told the 15-member Council that the Middle East can only secure peace if it is built on the foundation of justice – an imperative that entails a viable, independent and contiguous State of Palestine on the basis of internationally agreed parameters, the pre-1967 borders and with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as the capital of the Palestinian State.
