Speech by the Minister of State, minister of foreign affairs, the National Community Abroad and African Affairs, Mr Ahmed Attaf, at the meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the Non-Aligned Movement on the Palestinian Question

Allow me, at the outset, to express my sincere appreciation to you, Mr. Chair, for convening this meeting and for your efforts in steering the work of the NAM Ministerial Committee on Palestine. My gratitude goes also to Minister Riyad Mansour for his comprehensive briefing and for his proposals which I readily support and endorse.

We meet today in the wake of encouraging developments marked by the signing of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, a development that has rekindled the hope for an end to the untold suffering inflicted upon the Palestinian people. This is indeed a crucial step in the right direction, but a step that must be consolidated through a comprehensive approach to address both the immediate needs of the Palestinian people and the long-term requirements of sustainable peace in the region.

From our perspective, the success of this agreement depends not only on the full respect of all commitments made to uphold the ceasefire, to ensure the withdrawal of the Israeli forces and to guarantee unhindered humanitarian access, but also, and most importantly, on pairing this agreement with a serious and credible political process that should lead to the establishment of an independent, viable and sovereign Palestinian State within the framework of the two-State solution.

The time has indeed come for the international community to realize that this solution is not only a necessity to fulfil the Palestinian national aspirations. It is a local imperative, a regional imperative, and a global imperative.

A local imperative, to bring an end to eight decades of injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people as a result of the continued occupation of their land;

A regional imperative, to halt the most dangerous spiral of escalation and instability driven by the Israeli expansionist agenda as embodied in the so-called “Greater Israel” project;

And last but not least a global imperative, to preserve the credibility of international law and that of the United Nations itself, and to reaffirm that no one is above the rules, principles and values that bind the international community in its entirety.

I thank you.