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Palestinian Ambassador: Essence of conflict is occupation - INTERVIEW

Palestinian Ambassador: Essence of conflict is occupation - <span style="color: red;">INTERVIEW

15 July 2014 13:44 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Etibar Mammadov, Rufat Ahmadzadeh – APA. “What is happening in the Gaza Strip is a war of the Israeli state declared against the Gaza Strip and Palestinian people. Since the beginning of the war, 176 people (77 percent of them are civilians, women and children) have been killed, a number of houses owned by ordinary Palestinians destroyed”.

Ambassador of Palestine to Azerbaijan Nasir Abdulkarim told the aforesaid to APA in his interview.

He said the essence of the conflict is occupation.

“Israel is an occupier. All of these problems have arisen from this conflict. Several resolutions, decisions adopted in this regard demands the establishment of an independent Palestinian State with its capital city of East al-Quds in the neighborhood of Israel. However, this did not happen. Desire of the people of Palestine is to establish their independent state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”, he said.

The reason of the conflict is allegedly pointed out the captivity and then the murder of three young Israeli people. In his response to the question about Israel’s arguments set to declare a war, the ambassador replied:

“The Palestinian state and its President Mahmoud Abbas are strongly against any violence. The murder of Israelis or Palestinians is unacceptable for us. Our president has unequivocally condemned the killing of young Israelis. And what has Benjamin Netanyahu done in his response to this? He immediately took an inciting position against the Palestinian people by creating all conditions for the Israeli army to enter the cities on West Bank which caused the arrest of 800 young Palestinians and killing of seven civilians”, the ambassador said.

The Ambassador stated that they do not support missile attacks launched by HAMAS on Israel and demand to stop it immediately: “If there is a problem, solve it with HAMAS. Why do you kill civilians? As Palestine is under occupation, it has not wide opportunities and power as Israel to control the HAMAS group in the country. It is impossible now to disarm them or limit their actions. However, our police protect tranquility and control laws in the settlements of Palestine and we do our best to ensure security of civilians. Note that these developments are occurring on the Israeli-occupied territories. The incident related to three young Israelis happened in the area controlled by Tel-Aviv.”

The diplomat reminded that the UN gave 56% of Palestinian lands to Israel, 44% to Palestine when Israeli state was built: “However, 78% of the lands are under the control of Israel.

We are even willing to live in 22% of Palestinian historical lands if Israel abandons radicalism and shows peacefulness. According to the latest UN resolution, the sovereignty of the Palestinian state with its capital city of East al-Quds should be recognized by Israel. However, the opposition side prolongs this issue artificially and does not allow us building our state even in 22% of lands. And even 4 of 22% is under Israeli control”.

Nasir Abdul Karim also answered question on relations with Azerbaijan:

“Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Baku in 2011. During his meeting with President Ilham Aliyev, they laid the foundation of a strong friendship. Certainly, Azerbaijan is one of the closest friendly country to us in the region. After this meeting, Azerbaijani government allocated $5 mln to Palestine at the ECO ministerial conference in Baku in 2013. Azerbaijani government also provided support to our embassy in providing with the material-technical base. We are satisfied with Azerbaijan’s care and kindness to Palestinian embassy, state and we are proud of it”.

With regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the ambassador said:

“Palestinian lands are under occupation. We, as a country that is suffering from occupation, could never favor occupation. During his visit to Baku, Palestinian President Mr Mahmoud Abbas, standing next to Mr Ilham Aliyev in his residence, clearly expressed that he fully supports the Republic of Azerbaijan and its territorial integrity and urged the fulfillment of the four UN resolutions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by counting them one by one. The position of the Palestinian government in this regard is transparent and coincides with that of the Azerbaijani Republic”.