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Pakistan

Israels settlement activity halts peace process: Pakistan

Dunya News

Israelis settlements in Palestinian area are stumbling block for peace in the region.

In this regard, Pakistan has made a fervent call on the international community to help break the stalemate in the Middle East peace process resulting from Israel’s policy of building Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian territories.“Settlement activity and peace process cannot move together,” Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, told the General assembly on Wednesday.“Palestinians should not be expected to negotiate when their land is being confiscated and annexed in the name of new settlements,” he said in a debate on the Middle East question.Ambassador Haroon reaffirmed Pakistan’s support for the Palestinian people’s just struggle for the right to self-determination, said the peace process leading to a final settlement was effectively stalled by the Israeli regime’s constant expansionist policy.He said there was also no reversal in the deteriorating living conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, while Israeli defiance of the international community on the issue of settlements and its high level of impunity were destroying the peace process and inflicting innumerable hardships on the Palestinian people under its illegal occupation.The Pakistan envoy called on Israel to ease its blockade of Gaza and to allow the free flow of people and commerce. The present stalemate in the peace process could not be broken without sustained and meaningful engagement by the international community, he said, emphasizing that it was important for the international community to work on freezing all Israeli settlement activity, helping Palestinians strengthen State-and institution building and ensuring progress on the status of the Palestinian United Nations membership application.Lasting solutions to the wider Arab-Israeli conflict were essential to comprehensive peace in the Middle East, the envoy said, stressing that it was imperative to address its root cause the Israeli occupation of Arab territories.People of all races and religions in the Middle East had suffered for the last six decades, he pointed out, underscoring the need for concerted action and political will to build a lasting peace that could save succeeding generations from the tragedies and tribulations of their ill fated predecessors.
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