RSS
Palestinian state minister, in Romania: War must end; Palestinians need future that gives hope
The Palestinians who went through despair and agony in the last year need a future in which they have something to hope for, and not to look back at what happened after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas and to think about things that prolong the endless cycle of violence in the region, pleaded on Wednesday, in Bucharest, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates within the Palestinian National Authority, Varsen Ohannes Vartan Aghabekian.
The Palestinian secretary of state told a press conference that she is on her first visit to a capital city of an EU member state since he took office six months ago, and that he opted to visit Romania in appreciation the "historical ties between Romania and Palestine that started decades ago", recalling that the first meeting between the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the former Israeli Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres took place in our country.
"Romania has a special place and a special position with both Palestine and Israel and if need be can play an important role in pushing forward probably a political horizon that we as Palestinians especially are looking for, especially after this very whole year of horrendous brutality to which our people were subjected and were burdened with", she explained, without elaborating on whether she expects any concrete action from Romanian diplomacy apart from the reiteration of support for the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which also represents the EU line.
However, the Palestinian state minister said, "Romania can play a role in the future in reconciling the differences" between Israel and the Palestinians due to its good relations with both sides.
Asked what the message will be at the meeting at the secretary of state level that she will have in Romania, the Palestinian diplomat replied that she will plead for international efforts to end the war, which threatens to spread throughout the region, and for a political solution to the 75-year conflict in the Middle East.
"We would like to have this war stopped because this war is doing nothing but killing more civilians by the day. It will get us nowhere nearer to peace and security, neither for Israel nor for Palestine nor for the whole region. We need the world to rally behind international law and we need to think of a better future for everyone in the area not just one on the account of the other and we need to think of the Palestinians who after what happened in the last year would want to see a future that would bring something they can look forward to and hope to see and hope to achieve rather than a future where they look back at a whole year of agony, despair, suffering, killing, helplessness, hopelessness, and think of more things that will take us more into the cycle of never-ending violence in the area," Varsen Ohannes Vartan Aghabekian said in Bucharest.
The Palestinian minister of state will not visit several EU states during this trip, but she stated that this will represent her mission in the months to come. When asked what she specifically expects from the EU states, she said that she would like, for example, that the member states "hold Israel accountable for violating international law and humanitarian law, as stipulated in the Association Agreement" between it the country and the community bloc. She welcomed the labeling of settler products and settlements are a step in the right direction.
''Putting settlers who commit violence against Palestinians on the blacklist of the country, that's also important. Any small step, regardless of how small, will make a difference, and collectively will make a big difference," Aghabekian emphasized.
Asked if she sees a time horizon for the restart of the peace process and the peaceful resolution of the conflict, she said that she remains optimistic even though it should have happened "yesterday". "Would it happen in 12 months? That's another question. But as long as the process starts, I think we're in the right direction," she said.
"It's time for the international community to wake up, to see the plight of the Palestinians, to see us as human beings, because we are human beings. We're not of a lesser god. And we are not less human than anybody else on this earth. And our rights are the same as the rights of people in the United States, in Romania, in whatever you want on this globe and it's time for the creation of the second state which is the state of Palestine", the state minister also pleaded.