Anwaarul Haq Kakar calls for countering all terrorists without any discrimination n Urges global powers to convince New Delhi to accept Islamabad’s offer of mutual restraint on strategic and conventional weapons n Says Pakistan desires productive relations with India
n Kashmir is the key to peace between Pakistan and India.

 

NEW YORK  -  Caretaker Prime Minis­ter Anwaarul Haq Ka­kar Friday urged the in­ternational community to counter all terrorists without any discrimina­tion including Hindutva inspired extremists.

Addressing the 78th session of the UN Gen­eral Assembly in New York on Friday, he point­ed out that the rising threat by the far-right extremist and fascist groups pose genocide threat to Indian Mus­lims and Christians. The prime minister stressed the need to oppose state terrorism and address its root causes such as poverty, injustice and foreign occupation be­sides distinguishing genuine freedom strug­gles from terrorism.

The prime minister also noted that devel­opment depends on peace. He said Pakistan is situated in one of the least economically in­tegrated region in the world and it believes that region develops together. He said Paki­stan, therefore, desires peaceful and produc­tive relations with all its neighbours, includ­ing India.

He pointed out that Kashmir is the key to peace between Paki­stan and India. Jammuand Kashmir dispute is one of the oldest issues on the agenda of Security Council. He regret­ted that India has evaded imple­mentation of the Security Coun­cil’s resolutions, which call for final disposition of Jammu and Kashmir to be decided by its people through UN supervised plebiscite. Referring to the Indi­an atrocities in the illegally oc­cupied Jammu and Kashmir es­pecially ever since 5th August 2019, the prime minister called upon the UN Security Council to ensure the implementation of its resolutions on Kashmir dis­pute. He suggested the UN Mil­itary Observer Group for In­dia and Pakistan be reinforced. He urged the global powers to convince New Delhi to accept Islamabad’s offer of mutual restraint on strategic and con­ventional weapons.

The prime minister termed peace in Afghanistan a strate­gic imperative for Pakistan. He said though Pakistan shares the international community’s con­cerns with respect to Afghani­stan, particularly the rights of women and girls. He, however, said Pakistan advocates contin­ued humanitarian assistance to the destitute Afghan population in which Afghan women and girls are the most vulnerable as well as support for revival of the Afghan economy and imple­mentation of connectivity proj­ects with the Central Asia.

The prime minister said Pa­kistan’s first priority is to pre­vent and counter all forms of terrorism from and within Af­ghanistan. He said Pakistan con­demns the cross border attacks against Pakistan by the TTP, Daesh and other groups operat­ing from Afghanistan.

He said though Pakistan en­joys Afghan support and coop­eration to prevent these attacks, but it is also taking necessary measures to end this externally encouraged terrorism.

Alluding to the phenomenon of Islamophobia, Anwaarul Haq Kakar said it has assumed epidemic proportions after ter­rorist attacks of 9/11 as mani­fested in the negative profiling of Muslims and attacks on Is­lamic sites and symbols such as the recent public burning of Holy Quran.

He recalled that the UN Gen­eral Assembly last year adopted a resolution proposed by Paki­stan on behalf of the OIC declar­ing 15 March as an Internation­al Day to combat Islamophobia.

He said earlier this year the human rights council adopted an OIC resolution submitted by Pakistan urging states to out­law the burning of the Holy Qu­ran and similar provocations. He said Islamabad welcomes the legislation initiated by Den­mark and contemplated by Swe­den towards this end.

The prime minister said Paki­stan and the OIC countries will propose further steps to com­bat Islamophobia including the appointment of a Special En­voy, creation of an Islamopho­bia data centre, legal assistance to victims and an accountability process to punish Islamophobic crimes. Expressing Pakistan’s commitment to rapid econom­ic recovery, the prime minister said his government will stabi­lise country’s foreign exchange reserves and currency, expand domestic revenues and most importantly mobilize signifi­cant domestic and external in­vestment. 

To this end, he said Pakistan has established a Special Invest­ment Facilitation Council (SIFC) to expedite investment deci­sions. He said 28 projects have been identified in priority sec­tors: agriculture, mining, ener­gy and IT for implementation in collaboration with Pakistan’s partners. Anwaarul Haq Kakar said Pakistan’s long-term shift to geo-economics is well under­way. He said the second phase of the China-Pakistan Econom­ic Corridor (CPEC) has been ini­tiated covering railway, infra­structure, and manufacturing projects. 

He said Pakistan also looks forward to the early imple­mentation of the “Connectivi­ty” projects with Central Asia. Anwaarul Haq Kakar said Pa­kistan’s food, fuel and finance challenge is a prime illustration of the impacts of Covid-19 pan­demic, conflicts and climate on developing countries.

He pointed out that Pakistan is one of the worst affected countries from the impacts of climate change. He recalled the epic floods of last summer sub­merged a third of the country, killed 1700 and displaced over eight million people, destroyed vital infrastructure and caused over 30 billion dollars in dam­age to Pakistan’s economy.

He said Pakistan is gratified by the commitments of over 10.5 billion dollars for its compre­hensive plan for recovery, re­habilitation and reconstruction with resilience. He said specific projects are being submitted to ensure timely funding and exe­cution of the plan. He hoped the development partners will ac­cord priority to release funds for its ‘resilient’ recovery Plan which has been costed at 13 bil­lion dollars.

The prime minister said Paki­stan also looks forward to the fulfillment of the climate change commitments made at COP28 by the developed world to pro­vide over 100 billion dollars in annual climate finance.

He stressed that attempts to selectively provide these funds on the basis of geo-political con­siderations should be resisted.

The prime minister said that at the SDG Summit in New York, far-reaching commitments were made to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. 

He underlined the need to ensure implementation of the ‘SDG Stimulus’; the re- chan­neling of unused Special Draw­ing Rights for development; the expansion of concessional lend­ing by the Multilateral Develop­ment Banks; and the resolution of the debt problems of the 59 countries in debt distress.

Alluding to the complex glob­al and regional challenges that the world faces today, Anwaar ul Haq Kakar said these can be best addressed through ef­fective multilateralism with­in the framework of the Unit­ed Nations. He said Pakistan will continue to work actively to strengthen multilateral institu­tions and enhance global coop­eration.

The prime minister said Paki­stan does not believe in elitism within the comity of nations. He said Islamabad believes that adding additional permanent members to the Security Coun­cil will further erode its cred­ibility and legitimacy. He said the widest possible agreement can be best achieved on the ba­sis of the Uniting for Consen­sus Group’s proposal for expan­sion of the Council only in the non-permanent category with provision for a limited number of longer-term seats.