ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has said Islamabad needs to engage with Western countries, especially the United States and the UK to convince Israel the conflict in the Gaza Strip could have a “spillover effect” beyond the Middle East.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News, Prime Minister Kakar said, “We need to engage with Western capitals, especially London and Washington, and they need to make realize Israel, that they are destabilizing not only the region, but perhaps it would have a spillover consequence beyond the region.”
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Kakar has called for an urgent “cessation of violence” and branded Israel’s strike on Gaza “genocide.” The Prime Minister said that he would attend an extraordinary session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss Israel’s strikes on Palestine.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Calls for Engagement with Washington, London Amid Gaza Conflict
Responding to a question, PM Kakar said, “We must ask more deep questions from the entire … Muslim population: What sort of contribution internationally are we having … toward science and technology? He questioned, what sort of defense abilities are these 57 nations developing for themselves?”
The current confront is the bloodiest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and started on October 7 after Hamas fighters surprise attack on Israel and killed around 1,400. Since then, Israel has bombed the Gaza Strip, killing over 10,000 people, about 40 percent of them children, health officials said.
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UN Chief Antonio Guterres had called Gaza a “graveyard for kids,” amplifying demands for a truce in the region.
Muslim countries around the world have also asked for an immediate truce and pressed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to convince Israel to strop strikes. According to US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby the Israelis had made a commitment to announcing four-hour pause daily at least three hours in advance in Gaza, media reported on Thursday. US President Biden also the media persons that he had asked the Israel for a “pause more than three days” during talks over the release of several hostages held by Hamas, though he also ruled out the chances of a general truce.
