International News

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 20 (APP): Pakistan has denounced Israel’s plan to construct 300 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying the move was aimed at sabotaging the internationally accepted two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We firmly believe that the creation of an independent, contiguous and viable State of Palestine, based on pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds al Sharif as its capital, is an essential prerequisite to sustainable peace in the Middle East,” Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the UN Security Council on Wednesday. Speaking in a debate on the situation in the Middle East, she said the brutal occupation of Palestine and the denial of self-determination was a key source of the conflicts that were consuming the entire region. “The violence within the Israeli occupied territories will not remain insulated from the conflicts raging across Israel’s imposed frontiers,” the Pakistani envoy told the 15-member Council. Rejecting Israel’s plan to build new settlements in the occupied territories, Ambassador Lodhi said, “With every new settlement plan, the Israeli Government is systemically sabotaging the possibility of the two-state solution, the only viable option for durable peace; an option that has been accepted by the parties as well as the international community.” The inability of the Security Council to halt the expansion of Israeli