New Delhi: Urging the world to find a balance, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar has said that condemning the Hamas terror attack and standing with Israel over the issue, while also supporting Palestine for its rights, are two different positions and cannot be intertwined.
Speaking at the joint secretary session of the Italian Senate’s External Affairs and Defence Commission during his visit to Rome Thursday, Jaishankar called for a two-state solution to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“What happened on 7 October [a reference to the Hamas attack on Israel], this big act of terrorism and the subsequent happenings after that, this has taken the entire region into a very different territory. But surely it must be everybody’s hope that eventually… conflict cannot be the normal of that region,” said Jaishankar.
He added: “We have to find a balance between different issues because there is no question — if there is an issue of terrorism and we all find terrorism unacceptable, we have to stand up on terrorism. But there is also the issue of Palestine. There has to be a solution to the problems faced by the Palestinian people,” he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the first leaders to condemn Hamas’s attack on Israel as a terrorist attack. The Indian position was further reinforced at the UN General Assembly, where New Delhi abstained from voting on a resolution calling for a “truce” in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict as it did not condemn the Hamas attack.
On 7 October, Hamas — Palestinian militant group in control of the Gaza strip since 2007 — launched an aerial and ground attack on Israel, in which at least 1,400 Israelis were reported to have died and over 200 taken into captivity.
In retaliation, Israel launched an aerial bombardment on Gaza followed by a ground invasion. According to the health authorities in Gaza, the death toll of Palestinians currently stands at over 9,000.
Jaishankar pushes for two-state solution
Jaishankar asserted that a solution to the current crisis cannot be found through “conflict and terrorism” and only via “dialogue and negotiation”.
“Our [India’s] view is that it has to be a two-state solution. If you have to find a solution, you have to find it through dialogue and negotiation. You cannot find a solution through conflict and terrorism,” he said.
The foreign minister emphasised that international humanitarian law must be respected by “everybody”. He pointed out that it was important to get the “balance” right in a complicated situation, such as the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.
The external affairs minister is on a two-day visit to Italy, from 2 to 3 November.
Apart from addressing the joint session, Jaishankar met with Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani, and Italian Minister of Defence Guido Crosetto.
Jaishankar said he held a discussion on the situation in the Middle East, the conflict in Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific landscape with Tajani, in a post on social media.
“Conversed about deepening our strategic partnership. Agreed that potential in agro-tech, innovation, space, defence and the digital domain should be explored,” he said.
The minister also highlighted the signing of two agreements with Italy — Mobility and Migration Partnership Agreement and Cultural Exchange Program.
India and Italy also agreed to take forward their “renewed” defence and security partnership during discussions between Crosetto and Jaishankar.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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