LONDON: A delegation of Arab and Turkish foreign ministers on Saturday reiterated the importance of an immediate ceasefire to return security and stability to the Gaza Strip during a visit to the Canadian capital.
The delegation, headed by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, was received by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa, before beginning an official round of talks with Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, the Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry said.
The talks were also attended by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki and Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.
The officials discussed developments in Gaza and their repercussions, as well as Israel’s military escalation against Palestinian civilians, the ministry said in a statement.
The delegation urged the international community to quickly assume its responsibility to protect civilians, adding that discussions around Gaza’s future and the Palestinian issue “must come after an immediate ceasefire and a calming of the unjustified military escalation.”
The delegation stressed the importance of taking serious steps to ensure the securing of relief corridors for the delivery of urgent humanitarian, food and medical aid to Gaza.
It also stressed the importance of creating political conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and rejected discussing Gaza’s future separately from the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The ministers said they were dissatisfied with the blocking of a UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and expressed their concern about the expanding scope of blatant attacks carried out by Israeli forces against civilians, and the repeated violations of international law.
The delegation — made up of officials from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the Palestinian Authority — on Friday met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after Washington vetoed the resolution.
Health officials in the besieged enclave on Saturday said the death toll had surpassed 17,700, with 70 percent of the dead being women and children, while more than 46,000 had been wounded.
The majority of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million have been forced to flee their homes.
