By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar left for Amman on Tuesday for a one-day visit, where he is due to join foreign ministers from across the Arab and Islamic world for urgent talks on the deteriorating situation in occupied Jerusalem.
The Ministerial Meeting on Jerusalem, set to take place on Wednesday, has been called to hammer out a unified position among Arab League states and a wider group of Islamic countries as tensions in the holy city continue to mount. Dar was invited by his Jordanian counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Al Safadi, according to the Foreign Office.
Confirming the trip, the Foreign Office said on X that Dar would use the visit to “reaffirm Pakistan’s unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their just cause.”
The gathering is expected to draw senior officials from Turkiye, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia and Malaysia, alongside the secretary-general of the Arab League. Delegates are due to call on Jordan’s King Abdullah II during the visit, the Foreign Office said.
Beyond the main session, Dar is expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings with fellow foreign ministers on the sidelines, where discussions are likely to range across regional developments, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and other matters of shared concern.
The Foreign Office described Dar’s attendance as a reflection of Pakistan’s “principled support” for the Palestinian cause and reiterated the country’s long-standing position on Palestinian statehood, based on pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif — East Jerusalem — as its capital.
Islam’s third-holiest site, Al-Aqsa Mosque, sits at the heart of the concerns driving Wednesday’s talks. Pakistan and other Muslim-majority nations have repeatedly voiced alarm over what they describe as intensifying incursions by extremist Israeli settlers into the mosque compound, which Israel seized in 1967 and later annexed.
The compound remains one of the most sensitive flashpoints in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under arrangements that have held for decades, Jewish visitors are permitted to enter the site but barred from praying there. Israel maintains it remains committed to preserving that arrangement, though Palestinians increasingly fear it is being quietly undermined.
Just two months ago, Pakistan joined eight other Muslim countries in issuing a joint statement rejecting outright any attempt to alter the historic and legal status of Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites.
Wednesday’s agenda is expected to be wide-ranging, with participants set to examine the preservation of Jerusalem’s holy sites, the situation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, actions by Israel that critics say breach international law, progress on the Gaza ceasefire, and the broader push for a two-state solution.
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