Pakistan abstains from voting against Russia at UNGA, foreign minister urges ‘de-escalation’

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani foreign minister has urged “de-escalation” and called for a diplomatic solution as Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities continued on Thursday, a day after the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to reprimand Moscow and demand it stop fighting and withdraw its military forces.
The UNGA resolution, supported by 141 of the assembly’s 193 members, ended a rare emergency session called by the UN Security Council as Ukrainian forces battled on in the face of Russian air strikes that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee.
The text of the resolution “deplores” Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine.” Thirty-five members including China, India and Pakistan abstained and five countries including Russia, Syria and Belarus voted against the resolution. While General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, they carry political weight.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was in Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin last week on the day Russian forces entered Ukraine. Pakistan has expressed concern about the fallout from the invasion but stopped short of condemning it.
In a telephone conversation with Josep Borell, vice president of the European Commission and high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said:
“The Foreign Minister recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan had regretted the latest situation between Russia and Ukraine, and had shared Pakistan’s hope that diplomacy could avert military conflict. Underscoring the adverse effects of conflict on developing countries, the Prime Minister has been stressing the importance of diplomatic solution.”
Qureshi expressed “deep concern at the recent turn of events” and urged dialogue and diplomacy, saying Pakistan had “consistently stressed the need for de- escalation, renewed negotiations, sustained dialogue, and continuous diplomacy.”
Borell acknowledged the importance of continued efforts for finding a diplomatic solution.
The telephone conversation came as Russian troops were in the center of the Ukrainian port of Kherson on Thursday after a day of conflicting claims over whether Moscow had captured a major urban center for the first time in its eight-day invasion.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had captured Kherson on Wednesday but an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded that Ukrainian forces continued to defend the Black Sea port of about 250,000 people.
The capture of the strategic southern provincial capital, where the Dnipro River flows into the Black Sea, would be the first significant urban center to fall since Moscow launched its invasion on Feb. 24.
Russian forces have yet to overthrow the government in Kyiv but thousands are reported to have died or been injured and more than a million people have fled Ukraine amid the biggest attack on a European state since 1945.