NEW YORK: Pakistan has called for “new thinking” to shape effective approaches to prevent conflicts, resolving disputes — such as Kashmir & Palestine — and building peace in conflict-hit countries.
“What is required is a comprehensive and integrated strategy which offers regional and international support to national efforts for conflict prevention and dispute resolution”, Ambassador Munir Akram told the UN Security Council which held a high-level debate centred on preventing conflict and building and sustaining peace.
Such a strategy, the Pakistani envoy said, must include: economic and financial support to the States in distress – to create employment and generate trust and hope; capacity-building, to enable governments to provide the basic services needed by local populations.
He also called for an end to external exploitation, which fuels violence and terrorism; good faith efforts at resolution of conflicts – at the local and regional levels; regional and international support for security and counter-terrorism operations; and a review of ill-considered sanctions that mostly punish the poor. The meeting – convened by Sierra Leone, the Security Council president for August – was held against the backdrop of a rise in conflict globally. “The root causes of these conflicts range from the legacies of colonialism, internal struggles for scarce food, water and pastures, external competition for precious national resources and interventions designed to suppress the struggle of peoples to reclaim their own political and economic destinies,” Ambassador Akram said.
“The consequences of foreign occupation are nowhere as clear as in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine,” the Pakistani envoy said, as he called on the Security Council to end Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
While acknowledging the provision of security and basic needs and services is essential to build social cohesion and success against the forces of violence and terrorism, Ambassador Akram said such national strategies were not sufficient to address the complex crises we face in Africa and elsewhere. “The proliferation of most of these conflicts has been caused by both endogenous and exogenous factors that must be understood and addressed.”
While the concept of nationally-led violence prevention strategies, as outlined in the Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace, was valuable, Ambassador Akram cited Pakistan’s experience in fighting terrorism, noting that “Pakistan’s updated National Action Plan to combat terrorism, called ‘Azam-e-Istehkam’, relies on working with local communities to exclude and eliminate violence extremism and terrorism.” –Agencies
