Daily Times

NEW YORK, Over India’s strong objections, a Non-Aligned Movement’s ministerial conference has commended the role of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan and four other leaders for their full support to the Palestinians cause, according to conference sources.

The prime minister’s name was mentioned in a political declaration along with those of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rohani and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, citing their strong backing to the Palestinians’ struggle for their inalienable rights.

The comprehensive declaration was unanimously adopted by the July 13-14 conference, hosted by Azerbaijan, the current Chairman of the 120-member movement. Azeri Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Beyukaga Oglu Azimove presided. The declaration also incorporated Pakistan’s positions on the right to self-determination, addressing root causes of terrorism and measures to address the new and emerging threats posed by terrorist attacks on the basis of xenophobia, racism and other form of intolerance.

In his video statement, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi underscored the NAM’s important role in promoting peace and development and presented concrete proposals to respond to current global challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. Qureshi also reiterated his deep concern at the continued denial of their right to self-determination to the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) as well as Palestine, guaranteed to them under several UN Security Council resolutions. He called upon the international community and NAM to work for a just, peaceful and expeditious settlement of these conflicts in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine.

Sources said that India intensively campaigned for the removal of the declaration’s paragraph praising the role of PM Khan as well as of the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and South Africa, but failed because of the strong sentiment prevailing in their favour. The Indians argued that a “selective listing of individual leaders” was contrary to NAM’s principles. After the presiding officer overruled New Delhi’s arguments, India, the lone dissenter, disassociated itself from that paragraph. Subsequently, India stood isolated when the delegates adopted the NAM declaration by acclamation.