Pakistan urges ICJ Gaza ruling’s full compliance

Foreign Office calls for unconditional ceasefire, UNSC role in mitigating the crisis

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan on Thursday called for full implementation of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) provisional judgment on Gaza, requiring an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and urged the United Nation Security Council to play its mandated role on the crisis.

At her weekly press briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch expressed deep concerns over the ongoing oppression of Palestinian people and condemned an Israeli attack inside the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin which, she said, fell in the category of war crimes.

“Pakistan also calls for the full implementation of ICJ’s provisional judgment to uphold human rights, dignity, and identity of the Palestinian people as per the UN Charter, relevant resolutions, and international law,” Baloch said.

“The implementation of these provisional measures requires an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to bring about an end to the suffering faced by the people of Gaza,” she said. “These ongoing atrocities go against the spirit of the provisional measures decided by the ICJ to protect the people of Gaza.”

Baloch stressed that the suspension of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) also went against the spirit of the ICJ's provisional measures. She called for reconsidering the decision of suspending the UNRWA funding.

The spokesperson said that on February 5, the government and the people of Pakistan would observe the Kashmir Solidarity Day to reaffirm their solidarity with the Kashmiri people in their just struggle for the realisation of their inalienable right to self-determination.

"Pakistan will continue to extend political, diplomatic and moral support to our Kashmiri brothers and sisters for the just and peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolutions," the spokesperson reiterated.

Baloch said that Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani attended the Third European Union (EU)-Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum in Brussels, where he also held bilateral meetings with a number of EU officials. Jilani, she added, will also attend a session on ‘Economic Resilience and Investment’.

She informed the media persons that Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Islamabad on January 29 and held in-depth talks with Foreign Minister Jilani, and met with Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar and Chief of Army Staff Gen Asim Munir.

The two sides agreed to immediately appoint liaison officers in Turbat and Zahedan, besides establishing a joint coordination mechanism at the foreign ministers level to oversee and steer progress on a common agenda for prosperity and development, she added.

Baloch reiterated that Pakistan shared credible evidence linking Indian agents to extra-territorial and extra-judicial killings of two Pakistani nationals on the Pakistani soil, which contained striking similarities with the pattern observed in other countries, including Canada and the United States.

As part of a proactive diplomacy and deepening engagement with Small Island Developing States, the spokesperson said, Pakistan formally established diplomatic relations with St Kitts & Nevis in the Caribbean and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.