RIYADH: Ministers from Arab and Muslim countries will visit China on Monday on the first leg of a tour that aims to end the war in Gaza, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.
The tour will be the first step for the Islamic Ministerial Committee to carry out decisions reached at the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Riyadh earlier this month, Prince Faisal said on the sidelines of the IISS Manama Security Summit in Bahrain, in comments posted by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on X on Saturday.
The ministers will visit several other capitals after China to convey a strong message of achieving an immediate ceasefire and facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the minister noted.
سمو وزير الخارجية الأمير #فيصل_بن_فرحان @FaisalbinFarhan : الأولوية الآن إنهاء القتال.. ومعاناة سكان غزة يجب أن تتوقف pic.twitter.com/PLv6oFGCag
— وزارة الخارجية (@KSAMOFA) November 18, 2023
Prince Faisal discussed developments in Gaza on Saturday with EU Foreign Affairs High Representative Josep Borrell.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said despite the agreement within the international community on the importance of peace, there is still not enough attention given to the need of an immediate ceasefire.
“We hope at some point we can relaunch efforts towards permanent peace with the establishment of a Palestinian state that will ensure the security for all of us in the region, but the priority now is ending the fighting,” the prince said.
He added: “We must work together to ensure that we end this fighting and civilian suffering we are seeing every day in Gaza.”
Israel is carrying out a relentless bombardment and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip which has so far killed around 12,300 people and displaced more than one million Gazans.
