OIC CFM: Pakistan calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire

BANJUL, Gambia: As the foreign ministers of the OIC countries gathered ahead of the Islamic Summit, Pakistan called for the declaration of an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, lifting of the inhuman siege and opening of a humanitarian corridor, besides urging the international community to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes in Gaza.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, in his address at the Preparatory Meeting of Foreign Ministers for the 15^th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference held on Thursday, also called for an end to indiscriminate use of force and return of the displaced people.

Ishaq Dar, who arrived in the Gambian capital city of Banjul on Wednesday for the OIC Islamic Summit, also emphasised the UN Security Council’s role in implementing its resolution 2728 for cessation of hostilities, asking Israel to halt all settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and relinquish all usurped Palestinian properties, the official news agency reported.

The theme of this year’s summit is ‘Enhancing Unity and Solidarity through Dialogue for Sustainable Development’.

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

The deputy prime minister congratulated Gambian Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara on assuming the chairmanship of the session and 15^th Islamic Summit and appreciated the role of the outgoing chair, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Dar expressed Pakistan’s deep concern over the ongoing genocide and starvation of people in Gaza and called for the reactivation of OIC’s Ministerial Committee on Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, offering Pakistan’s assistance to the body.

The deputy prime 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 strongly condemned the oppressive actions in the 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.

Dar stressed the imperative of joint action by the OIC to confront rising Islamophobia, which was 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 had set for themselves a clear understanding and the responsibility of content relating to “Antisemitism” and “Holocaust denial”, same was not the case for blasphemous and anti-Islamic content that was 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 (SOM) and finalised various documents, including the resolution on the issue of Palestine, the final communique of the OIC Summit Conference and the Banjul Declaration.