UNITED NATIONS: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi urged UN Secretary General António Guterres on Friday to support the effort for ending Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

Earlier in the day, Mr Guterres asked Israeli and Palestinian leaders to go “beyond the restoration of calm and start a serious dialogue to address the root causes of the conflict”.

Gaza, he said, was an “integral part of a future Palestinian state”.

In a tweet posted after his meeting with Mr Guterres in New York, Mr Qureshi said the UN chief must use his good offices to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and to persuade India to “rescind its illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019”.

The foreign minister arrived in New York on Wednesday to participate in a UN General Assembly (UNGA) debate on Palestine. At the debate, he suggested creating an international force to protect Palestinians.

“Shared our deep concern for the people of Palestine and Pakistan’s unwavering support for their right to self-determination,” said Mr Qureshi of his meeting with the secretary general. “While ceasefire is welcomed, Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end.”

FM welcomes ceasefire but says Israel’s occupation must end

The foreign minister described the ceasefire agreement, announced on Thursday evening, as the culmination of an international effort to end 11 days of violence that caused the death of hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children.

“This is the power of collective, unified action; this is the effort of every person and every nation, together for a just cause. May this ceasefire be the 1st step towards peace in Palestine,” he wrote in a tweet.

In a separate meeting with Volkan Bozkir, Mr Qureshi thanked the UNGA chief for calling a special session on Palestine.

“There are no words strong enough to condemn Israel’s tyranny. We call for an immediate ceasefire and to ensure Israel upholds all values of int’l human rights law,” he said.

After a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Mr Qureshi said that Pakistan and Turkey “stand united, shoulder to shoulder, with our brother Foreign Minister Riyad Al Maliki of Palestine” in highlighting the Palestinian issue.

Earlier, he also thanked Turkey for standing with Pakistan in the FATF and appreciated Turkey’s re-energising of the Afghan peace process. “We look forward to the early convening of the Istanbul Conference on Afghanistan,” he said.

Talking about his earlier meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, Mr Qureshi said: “Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end and illegal settlements and apartheid-like regime imposed in the occupied territories must be dismantled.”

He emphasised the need to implement UN resolutions for the establishment of independent and contiguous Palestinian state with Al Quds Al Sharif as its capital.

In another tweet on his engagement in New York, Mr Qureshi condemned India’s attempts to discredit the legitimate Kashmiri struggle and to prosecute its leaders through trumped up charges under draconian laws, which he said were a clear violation of the UN Charter, UN Security Council and UN General Assembly resolutions.

In a tweet about his conversation with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, the foreign minister appreciated his support for a stronger Pakistan-US strategic partnership and his commitment to improving Pakistan’s agricultural productivity.

Mr Qureshi said that he also spoke to Senator Graham about forging greater trade ties with the US and about Pakistan’s support for the Afghan peace process.

In another tweet, he commemorated the 70th anniversary of friendship with China.

The US media, however, continued to focus on a controversy that followed Mr Qureshi’s interview with CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga, in which he reportedly said that Israel was losing “the media war, despite their connections.”

When the anchor asked him to explain those “connections,” he said: “They [Israel] are very influential people. I mean, they control the media.”

The CNN anchor said she “would call that an antisemitic remark”.

Critics swiftly took to Twitter to criticise Mr Qureshi. But the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad dismissed those assertions as false. The remarks cannot be “construed as anti-Semitic by any stretch of the imagination,” the ministry said.

“Any twist given to the foreign minister’s remarks would unfortunately prove the very point he was making,” the statement said. “The right to freedom of expression must be respected equally by everyone.”

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2021