Saudi Gazette report

LONDON — The Islamic Ministerial Committee, represented by foreign ministers of a number of Arab and Islamic countries, welcomed the joint efforts of Egypt, Qatar, and the United States of America to broker a humanitarian truce in the besieged Gaza Strip that is expected to come into force shortly.

The ministers called on Britain to play a balanced role in accordance with international law and international humanitarian law to achieve an immediate ceasefire and implement all relevant international resolutions with regard to Palestine. The ministers made the remarks during their official meeting with the British Foreign Secretary David Cameron in London on Wednesday.

The Ministerial Committee delegation, headed by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, reached London on the third leg of its tour to meet members of the United Nations Security Council in their efforts to stop the military escalation, achieve truce, protect civilians, and expand humanitarian corridor in Gaza. The ministers called on members of the Security Council and the international community to take effective and urgent measures for a complete ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, while emphasizing that this is a priority for all Arab and Islamic countries.

The joint meeting underlined the need to revive the peace process. It also discussed securing safe passages for the delivery of humanitarian aid, food, water, fuel and electricity to Gaza, in addition to allowing international organizations to carry out their tasks in the Gaza Strip.

The members of the Ministerial Committee stressed the importance of ensuring a just, lasting and comprehensive peace, through implementing international resolutions related to the two-state solution, and enable the Palestinian people to obtain their legitimate rights to establish an independent and sovereign Palestinian state along the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

They called on the international community to fulfill its responsibility by rejecting all forms of selective application of international legal and moral standards, and turning a blind eye to the heinous crimes committed by the occupation forces and settler militias against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Members of the committee, who attended the meeting with Cameron, included Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Jordan Ayman Safadi, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad al-Maliki, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, and Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit. British Minister of State for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and the United Nations Lord Tariq Ahmed was also present in the meeting.

London is the third stop of the tour of the members of the Islamic Ministerial Committee, deputed by the Arab and Islamic Summit held in Riyadh on Nov. 11 to undertake a high level diplomatic mission to end the conflict in Gaza. The extraordinary joint Arab-Islamic Summit issued a resolution that tasked the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Palestine to initiate immediate international action, on behalf of all member states of the OIC and the Arab League, for this purpose.

The first stop of the delegation was in China where the foreign ministers and OIC chief met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Monday. The committee met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday on the second leg of the tour, which will also take the foreign ministers to the rest of the Security Council member states to discuss stopping the war in Gaza over the coming days.