Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday arrived in Ankara on a diplomatic mission to establishing contacts with different countries in a bid to pressure Israel to stop attacks on Gaza which entered a second week on Monday.
On arrival, The foreign minister was received by Ankara deputy governor Ismail Çataklı and Pakistan ambassador Syrus Sajjad Qazi at Ankara Esenboga Airport.
In a statement, Qureshi said it would be “lamentable if the international community remained silent on the Palestinian situation”. He also called upon the Muslim community in European countries to play its role in helping stop “Israel’s persecution of [Palestinians] in Gaza”, Radio Pakistan reported.
The United States and other world powers have been pushing for an end to the fiercest air attacks in years, in which Gaza officials say 212 Palestinians, including 61 children and 36 women, have been killed.
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities around the world, from New York and London to Cape Town and Auckland, demanding an end to deadly raids on unarmed civilians.
The bombings come after weeks of mounting tensions over the looming forced expulsion of native Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem that Jewish settlers have been trying to expel them from.
US President Joe Biden on Monday (early Tuesday morning in Pakistan) expressed support for a cease-fire during a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, New York Times reported.
However, his carefully worded statement fell short of an immediate demand for an end to Israel’s bombing campaign. Netanyahu said his country would “continue striking at the terrorist targets.”
Qureshi also spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday who said Washington was working “intensively” to end the attacks.
He today said the strategy of Pakistan and Turkey is “clear” and the two countries wanted to convince the global community that Israeli air strikes should be “stopped immediately”.
He said “hurdles were being created” so the Palestine Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki would not be able to attend the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session on the conflict. “We will wait for al-Maliki and want him to accompany us to the session,” Radio Pakistan quoted him.
Turkish and Sudanese foreign ministers will also accompany Qureshi. Indonesia has also assured its foreign minister would participate in the session, Qureshi shared.
In New York, Qureshi will hold “important meetings” with different dignitaries and will “raise a voice [for] oppressed Palestinians in the UNGA”.
He will also talk to local and international media representatives and convey Islamabad’s position on the Palestinian situation to them, APP said.
