ISLAMABAD: Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi, special adviser to the prime minister on religious harmony and the Middle East, has said Pakistan is establishing interfaith harmony councils at the local, provincial and national levels to promote dialogue and resolve sectarian conflicts.

Pakistan is currently in the midst of protests over the killing of 11 miners from the Shia Hazara minority in southwestern Balochistan on early Sunday. The Daesh group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its website. The militant group has repeatedly targeted Pakistan’s minority Shias in recent years. 

Families of the victims placed the dead bodies on a road connecting Quetta with Sukkar on Sunday, but later moved them to the provincial capital where they have been sitting with the coffins on a major highway since. They demand that they will call off their sit-in only when Prime Minister Imran Khan visits Quetta to meet protesters. 

“We are going to establish interfaith harmony councils from the grassroots level to the top, from the union council level to the national level to promote dialogue and resolve all issues among different sects through negotiation,” Ashrafi told international media in an interview. ”There is no space for sectarianism in Islam. We have a tolerant society in Pakistan, where we work together with Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and other minorities.”

“Daesh, Pakistani Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other organizations are killing innocent people. They are linking themselves with Islam, but they have no link or relation with Muslims and Islam,” Ashrafi added. 

Ashrafi said there was no pressure on Pakistan to recognize Israel. 

Pakistan currently does not recognize the state of Israel over its thwarting of Palestinians’ aspirations for a state of their own. Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future free state, a demand Pakistan has supported for decades.

“Our prime minister has categorically rejected any plan to establish any kind of relationship with Israel until there is a just settlement, which satisfies Palestinians. And I don’t think Saudi Arabia will accept Israel too,” Ashrafi said. “Again, I repeat that no country has asked us to accept Israel. Pakistan is not a small country. We are a nuclear power, have a strong army and are a strong nation. Nobody can order us to establish ties with Israel.”