Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has strongly denounced the Israeli bombardment in Gaza and drew a historical comparison, highlighting similarities between Israel’s actions and those of “Pharaoh” for killing the children.

The interim prime minister, in his address at the 16th summit of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO), urged the member countries to rally the efforts to hold Israel to account for its “incessant and lethal” bombing in Gaza.

The prime minister is on a two-day visit to Uzbekistan mainly to attend the summit, besides engaging with the leaders of different countries to discuss mutual cooperation.

In his wide-ranging address, the prime minister raised the issue of the Gaza humanitarian crisis twice and reiterated condemnation of the killing of children and women and targeting of the hospitals.

“With the elimination of children, I recall in the history when Pharaoh, on the advent of the Moses’ birth killed children. And now, unfortunately, the people who claim to be the followers of Moses, are following the path of Pharaoh,” he remarked.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, Caretaker Commerce Minister Gohar Ejaz, and Caretaker Communications Minister Shahid Ashraf Tarar accompanied the prime minister in the summit held at the Tashkent Convention Center.

He told the ECO leaders that the incessant and lethal Israeli bombardment on Gaza was a “deplorable act” calling for international condemnation.

The prime minister said the situation needed to be addressed as per the OIC and UNSC resolutions. He urged the member countries to push for a ceasefire and support the call for the provision of humanitarian aid, besides rallying efforts to hold Israel to account.

Kakar urged the participating countries and the international community to rally behind to have a humanitarian corridor so that the unfortunate and defenceless people of Palestine could be helped out.

He also apprised the regional leaders of the unabated Indian atrocities in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and emphasised ECO countries to support Kashmiris in achieving their right of self-determination.

The interim PM also touched upon the issues of intolerance, violence, and xenophobia and called upon the ECO members and international community to work for building legal deterrence against Islamophobia while maintaining mutual respect, and harmony and co-existence.

ECO Vision 2025

Kakar reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to ECO Vision 2025 and called for collective efforts and accelerated reforms to achieve the organisation’s objectives and region’s trade potential for bringing “colossal” economic and peace dividends.

“Let us make ECO an organisation not just of words, but actions, not just commitments but implementation. It is crucial for us to work collectively and diligently to realise the goals and objectives of the Organisation… Our region, if well connected, can bring colossal economic and peace dividends for our people,” the prime minister said.

He said being blessed with natural resources, geographical linkages and cultural heritage, ECO region had been unable to exploit its true trade potential as it had just two per cent share in global trade and eight percent in intraregional trade.

In 2022, he said that the trade within the ECO region was recorded at $39 billion against $577 billion with the world and the intraregion exports also stood at $46 billion.

Kakar said the ECO Vision 2025, which was adopted by the 13th ECO summit in Islamabad had called for increasing regional trade, strengthening connectivity, operationalising major transport corridors and seeking energy security.

He supported the ECO’s corridor-based approach like Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran (KTAI), Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul“ (ITI), Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran (KTI) and others and said the integrated transport projects would help promote trade and connectivity.