ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has said that Pakistan would always stand by its commitment to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) mission to work for peace, democracy, human rights, gender equality, youth empowerment, and sustainable development through political dialogue, cooperation, and parliamentary action.
He expressed these views while talking to Duarte Pacheco, president of the IPU, who called on him at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Tuesday. The delegation was accompanied by Chairman of Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, Senator Faisal Saleem Rehman, and Paulo Neves Pocinho, Ambassador of the Portuguese Republic to Pakistan.
Talking to the delegation, the president said that Pakistan had high expectations of IPU, particularly with regard to playing a key role in the resolution of conflict and upholding human rights in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). He expressed the hope that IPU would take notice of the ongoing Islamophobia in India and the increasing persecution and intimidation of Muslims in India.
While discussing the magnitude of recent floods in Pakistan, the president said that the recent devastating floods in Pakistan were a wake-up call to the world to take serious, meaningful and effective measures and actions on war footing to reduce carbon emissions to prevent the devastation caused by climate change in many parts of the world, especially in Pakistan.
He deplored that Pakistan was facing the worst impact of global warming despite the fact that it was contributing less than one per cent of carbon emissions in the world. He called upon IPU to take parliamentary action to reduce the negative fallouts of climate change. The president said that Pakistan alone cannot shoulder the gigantic task of rehabilitation of 33 million flood victims and reconstructing millions of houses and vital infrastructure. He appealed to the developed world to come forward and help Pakistan to cope with the devastation caused by global-warming-induced super floods.
Pacheco, while offering his sincere condolences on the death of flood victims, expressed his concerns over the destruction of infrastructure in most parts of the country. He said that IPU being a multilateral forum discusses the issues confronted by the world as no single country could resolve the issues faced by it without the collective support of other countries.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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