ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN, AUGUST 1 – Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri has strongly condemned Israel’s indiscriminate and brutal attacks on Lebanese civilians in Qana in which 60 innocent lives have been lost including 37 children, as well as the ongoing tragedy in Lebanon. Expressing the Pakistani nation’s outrage at the massacre of helpless women and children in Lebanon, Kasuri urged the international community and in particular the key world powers not to remain oblivious to Israel’s continued and disproportionate attacks with impunity and its wanton and massive destruction of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and Palestine. The foreign minister said that the United Nations moral and legal authority was at stake because of its inability to bring into effect an unconditional ceasefire despite the passage of almost three weeks, the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians and the destruction of infrastructure which would take billions of dollars and many years to rebuild. Kasuri said that though the present crisis had unfortunately cost a lot of innocent lives, it did provide an opportunity to immediately initiate efforts to bring about a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, which lay at the root of the continuous instability in the Middle East and impacted the Muslim world and beyond. He said that Pakistan consistently stood for a two-state solution, Palestine and Israel living in peace and this was only possible if a genuinely free and viable Palestine state was created. The foreign minister said that selective application of UN resolutions such as 1559, as advocated by certain powers would not lead to peace. He said the other UN resolutions such as 242 and 338 calling for the reversal of Israeli occupation of Arab territories and the creation of an independent Palestinian state also needed to be implemented with utmost urgency. Kasuri said that Pakistan had been proactive diplomatically since the start of the current crisis. He added that he had attended the meeting at Kuala Lumpur along with four other Foreign Ministers from Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Iran which condemned Israeli aggression and called for an OIC Summit of selected countries in Malaysia. He would visit Malaysia once again in the next few days to attend the OIC meeting. The foreign minister said that Pakistan was expected to be represented in the Summit meeting at a high level. He said that top Pakistani leaders had spoken to many world leaders and had been regularly in touch with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. Kasuri said Pakistan would make efforts during the OIC summit to mobilize the Muslim world and to press for not only the end of the ongoing Israeli hostilities, but urge for a final solution of the Middle East conflict, leading to an independent Palestinian state. Kasuri expressed the Government’s grave concern at the humanitarian crisis in the wake of the Israeli attacks, which had made nearly one million Lebanese civilians displaced in their own country. He said that the international community must ensure that the urgently needed humanitarian assistance reached the affected Lebanese people. On its part, he said that Pakistan had already sent planeloads of relief supplies, including food and medicines. --SPA 1239 Local Time 0939 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/379607