ISTANBUL: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said Pakistan condemns the Israeli forces’ brutality towards the Palestinian people, media reported, and that an independent and transparent investigation was required to probe the crimes carried out against Palestinians.
In his statement at the seventh extraordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), pertaining to the violence against Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli troops, Abbasi vowed that Islamabad stands fast in its support for an independent Palestinian state.
The Pakistani premier also condemned the United States’ move to shift its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) needs to work to have its strategic resolutions implemented in the Palestine-Israel dispute and put an end to the horrific abuse of human rights, he said.
Abbasi arrived here in Istanbul earlier in the day to lead the Pakistani delegation at the OIC Summit being hosted by Turkey to discuss the grave situation of blatant human rights’ violations by Israeli forces in Palestine. Khurram Dastgir Khan, the minister for foreign affairs and defence, as well as other senior government officials accompanied him.
The extraordinary meeting was called by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his capacity as the chair of the OIC summit. It focused on the latest incidents of violence on the Gaza strip where more than 60 civilians were mercilessly killed by the occupying Israeli forces, whereas scores of others — including women, children, and elderly — sustained injuries.
Erdogan first addressed thousands in Istanbul at a rally he had personally called and, barely an hour later, chaired an emergency summit of Islamic heads of state he had summoned at a few days notice.
In his own address, he urged the Muslim states’ leaders to overcome divisions to combat Israel’s “brutality.”
The Turkish strongman has been outspoken over the killing by Israeli forces on Monday of some 60 Palestinians on the Gaza border as well as the move of the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“The time has come to stand against Israel’s tyranny,” Erdogan told a sea of protesters waving Turkish and Palestinian flags.
“I invite all Muslims and all humanity to take action […] against those who drag our region and the world into [a] catastrophe with their religious fanaticism,” he added.
He told the rally that Muslims had too often given a “shy and cowardly” image to their foes and failed to sort out internal disagreements.
Describing the issue of Jerusalem as a “test”, he said: “If we need to speak clearly, the Islamic world failed in the Jerusalem test.”
This is the second emergency OIC meeting Erdogan has hosted in the space of half a year after the December 2017 summit, also in Istanbul, that denounced US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
A draft summit communique called for “international protection for the Palestinian people” and condemns Israel’s “criminal” actions against “unarmed civilians.”
The text also accused the US administration of “encouraging the crimes of Israel”.
