"This is a direct attack on the Muslim Ummah at a time when the Middle East is already beset with wars and conflicts," the resolution says. The US move is also a violation of international law, United Nations Security Council resolutions, namely resolutions No. 252 (1968), 267 (1969), 465, 476 and 478 (1980), including the recent resolution 2334 (2016) and global consensus on how to resolve the Palestine conflict, it says.
The resolution passed by the Lower House also endorses the Final Communiqué of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah dated 4th December, 2017 and calls on the government to immediately mobilize the OIC into taking concrete diplomatic steps against this US action. The National Assembly also demanded the United States to immediately take back the said decision.
Speaking on the issue, members of all parliamentary parties feared that the US' decision of moving its embassy in Jerusalem is violation of international laws and it would increase terrorism and extremism in the whole Middle East. Pakistan Peoples Party member Naveed Qamar said that it is a sad day in history of the Muslim countries as the US decision to move its embassy in Jerusalem will have serious repercussions for the whole region.
He said the US President Donald Trump has tried to legitimize illegal occupation of Israel on Jerusalem in 1967 through this announcement. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf member Shah Mahmood Qureshi termed the US decision as violation of international laws and resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council on the issue.
He said that allies of the United States like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have already rejected the Trump's decision, adding that this act is also bound to create further polarization in the American society. Qureshi said that the foreign minister should have been in the house and given a policy statement on this important issue as Pakistan has to play a key role on the issue in the coming days.
Maulana Amir Zaman of JUI-F urged all Muslim countries to expel the US ambassadors in their respective countries declaring them as persona non grata. He also urged the government to pull out of the US alliance against war on terror. Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan member Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui also condemned the US decision and urged the government to take practical steps to resolve the issue as just passing the resolution is not going to do any good to the Palestinian cause.
Jamaat-e-Islami member Sahibzada Tariqullah expressed his disappointment over absence of the foreign minister in the house, saying that he should have given a policy statement on the issue. He said that Foreign Office should summon the US ambassador to hand him a demarche on the issue, adding that the House should also be briefed about recent visit of US defence secretary.
Mahmood Khan Achakzai, chief of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party said that the resolution passed by the House has no worth as different institutions do not accept supremacy of the Constitution. He also cautioned the government of treading carefully on the issue as this is not a simple problem, adding that the government should also have waited for outcome of the OIC meeting before giving its response on the issue.
FATA member Ghazi Gulab Jamal, Ijazul Haq of PML-F, Aftab Ahmad Sherpao of Qaumi Watan Party, Mehmood Bashir Virk of PML-N, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour of Awami National Party also spoke on the occasion and condemned the US decision.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017