Zardari reaffirms Palestinian statehood support in letter to Abbas
The president marked the 38th anniversary of Palestine's declaration of independence with a letter backing pre-1967 borders and Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.
President Asif Ali Zardari has written to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas marking the 38th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine, restating Pakistan's support for a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.
The information ministry announced the letter on Sunday, Arab News PK reported. Zardari conveyed felicitations to Abbas and the Palestinian people, describing relations between the two countries as fraternal and rooted in shared history, mutual trust and solidarity. He said Pakistan remains committed to strengthening those ties.
The ministry said the president reiterated Pakistan's "firm and principled support for the establishment of an independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous State of Palestine, based on the pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital," in line with United Nations resolutions. He reaffirmed solidarity with Palestinians in the face of their continued suffering and backed their aspirations for lasting peace, freedom and dignity.
Arab News PK reported that Palestine's declaration was drafted by the poet Mahmoud Darwish and proclaimed by Yasser Arafat in Algiers on Nov 15, 1988, accepting a two-state solution with Israel. Full sovereign independence remains unrealised amid Israeli occupation and conflict in the Palestinian territories, it said.
The letter came a day after Pakistan and 16 other countries condemned continued Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians as undermining the Gaza ceasefire. The joint statement was issued by the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, and was circulated by Pakistan's foreign ministry.
The ministers urged the United States and President Donald Trump's Board of Peace to press Israel to fulfil its commitments under the peace agreement. The statement followed an Israeli airstrike on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Thursday that killed at least six Palestinians, including a surgeon and a 13-year-old boy, and wounded several others, according to medical officials quoted by Arab News PK. The strike damaged a building housing surgical wards and put the hospital's surgery department out of service.
The ministers said the attack violated international humanitarian law, which gives special protection to medical facilities and health care workers. They also condemned Israeli strikes on tents and other sites sheltering displaced Palestinians, saying the attacks put the ceasefire in jeopardy and were inconsistent with Trump's Comprehensive Plan for Gaza.
How the reports differ
Daily Times carried the letter alone, leading with the felicitations to Mahmoud Abbas and the reiteration of support for Palestinian self-determination and a state on pre-1967 borders. Arab News PK reported the letter through the information ministry's announcement, added the history of the 1988 declaration under Mahmoud Darwish and Yasser Arafat in Algiers, and set the letter beside the 17-country joint statement Pakistan issued the previous day on Israeli strikes in Gaza, including the Khan Younis hospital attack.
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