ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top diplomat at the United Nations highlighted foreign occupation as one of the root causes of international conflicts on Wednesday, noting that its consequences were particularly visible in places like Palestine and Indian-administered Kashmir, while urging the world body to end Israel’s war in Gaza.
Ambassador Munir Akram raised this concern during a high-level debate at the UN Security Council on conflict prevention and peacebuilding convened by Sierra Leone, where participants focused on global, regional and national dimensions of various disputes around the world.
The Pakistani diplomat attributed the proliferation of conflicts in different regions to “flawed” international strategies that he maintained left much to be desired.
“The consequences of foreign occupation are nowhere as clear as in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine,” an official statement released after the debate quoted him as saying. “It is therefore the responsibility of this Council to end Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.”
Akram noted the root causes of global conflicts ranged from the legacies of colonialism, internal struggles and external competition for scarce resources, including food and water, to interventions aimed at suppressing people’s struggles to reclaim their political and economic rights.
He maintained that national strategies for conflict prevention could only succeed if they were accompanied by regional and international measures to address key causes of conflicts, such as poverty, unemployment, injustice, exploitation of natural resources and external interventions.
He also emphasized the challenge of extremist violence, highlighting Pakistan’s strategy of working with local communities to address the issue.
“In Pakistan’s experience, fighting terrorism in our border regions was successful due to the support, assistance and participation of the local communities,” he said.
Akram expressed hope the debate in the Council would inspire new thinking to develop effective approaches for preventing conflicts, resolving disputes and building peace in countries dealing with conflicts.
Pakistan’s UN envoy links global conflicts to foreign occupation, urges end to Gaza war
https://arab.news/5h9gz
Pakistan’s UN envoy links global conflicts to foreign occupation, urges end to Gaza war
- Ambassador Munir Akram addresses UN debate focusing on conflict prevention and peacebuilding
- He says Pakistan fought ‘terrorism in border regions’ with the help and participation of local communities
No casualties as blast derails Jaffar Express train in Pakistan’s south
- Passengers were stranded and railway staffers were clearing the track after blast, official says
- In March 2025, separatist militants hijacked the same train with hundreds of passengers aboard
QUETTA: A blast hit Jaffar Express and derailed four carriages of the passenger train in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday, officials said, with no casualties reported.
The blast occurred at the Abad railway station when the Peshawar-bound train was on its way to Sindh’s Sukkur city from Quetta, according to Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division controller Muhammad Kashif.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but passenger trains have often been targeted by Baloch separatist outfits in the restive Balochistan province that borders Sindh.
“Four bogies of the train were derailed due to the intensity of the explosion,” Kashif told Arab News. “No casualty was reported in the latest attack on passenger train.”
Another railway employee, who was aboard the train and requested anonymity, said the train was heading toward Sukkur from Jacobabad when they heard the powerful explosion, which derailed power van among four bogies.
“A small piece of the railway track has been destroyed,” he said, adding that passengers were now standing outside the train and railway staffers were busy clearing the track.
In March last year, fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group had stormed Jaffar Express with hundreds of passengers on board and took them hostage. The military had rescued them after an hours-long operation that left 33 militants, 23 soldiers, three railway staff and five passengers dead.
The passenger train, which runs between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and Peshawar in the country’s northwest, had been targeted in at least four bomb attacks last year since the March hijacking, according to an Arab News tally.
Pakistan Railways says it has beefed up security arrangements for passenger trains in the province and increased the number of paramilitary troops on Jaffar Express since the hijacking in March, but militants have continued to target them in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the site of a decades-long insurgency waged by Baloch separatist groups who often attack security forces and foreigners, and kidnap government officials.
The separatists accuse the central government of stealing the region’s resources to fund development elsewhere in the country. The Pakistani government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan.
