Pakistan asks UNSC to hold Israel accountable for defying Mideast peace bids
25 April, 2012
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) to hold Israel accountable for its continued defiance of international efforts to bring about a just settlement of the Middle East dispute.
"Flying in the face of the international community's will, Israel continues to implement policies in defiance of international law, and work towards undermining the basis of the two-state solution," Ambassador Raza Bashir Tarar, the acting permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the Security Council.
"Its, Israel's, efforts to redraw the map of Palestine through continuation of illegal settlement activity, continued persecution of Palestinians and reluctance to accept the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations, is taking the region to a state akin to a powder keg," he said in a debate on the Middle East situation.
"We reiterate that continued inaction by the international community is not an option." The Pakistani envoy supported Palestinians' right to self-determination, as well as the creation of an independent fact-finding mission in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), including East Jerusalem.
He noted that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's February visit to the region was a 'timely initiative' that would help refocus international attention on the festering dispute.
Tarar strongly condemned the April 4 announcement of new tenders for over 1,100 Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, whose mayor also announced measures that would effectively divide that city. Those actions represented major roadblocks to peace, he said.
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