United Nations, 23 August 2024 (TDI): Pakistan has called for “new thinking” to shape effective approaches to prevent conflicts, resolving disputes — such as Kashmir and Palestine — and building peace in conflict-hit nations.
“What is required is an integrated and comprehensive strategy which offers regional and global support to national efforts for conflict prevention and dispute resolution”, Pakistan;s Ambassador at the UN Munir Akram told the Security Council which held a high-level debate centered on preventing conflict and building and sustaining peace.
Such a strategy, the Pakistani ambassador said, must include: financial and economic support to the states in distress – to create employment and generate hope and trust; capacity-building, to enable governments to provide the basic services required by local populations.
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He also demanded for an end to external exploitation, which fuels violence and terrorism; good faith efforts at resolution of disputes – at the local and regional levels; regional and global support for security and counter-terrorism operations; and a review of ill-considered sanctions that mostly punish the poor.
The meeting – convened by Sierra Leone, the UNSC president for August – was held against the backdrop of a rise in conflict internationally.
“The root causes of these disputes range from the legacies of colonialism, internal struggles for scarce pastures, food and water, external competition for precious resources and interventions to suppress the struggle of peoples to reclaim their own economic and political destinies,” the ambassador said.
He added that the consequences of foreign occupation are nowhere as clear as in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and Palestine, Akram said, as he called on the Council to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
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While acknowledging the provision of security and basic needs and services is necessary to build social cohesion and success against the forces of violence and terrorism, he said such national strategies were not sufficient to resolve the complex crises we face in Africa and other regions.
“The proliferation of most of these disputes has been the result of both exogenous and endogenous factors that must be addressed,” he added.
