PM Kakar to attend World Economic Forum moot

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister (PM) Anwaarul Haq Kakar will visit Davos, Switzerland on January 15-19 to participate in the 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Foreign Office said.

The World Economic Forum is an annual gathering of government and corporate leaders for discussions on contemporary trends and challenges, developments shaping the world, and charting collective policy responses.

The theme of this year’s meeting is “Rebuilding Trust”.

FO Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, in her weekly press briefing, said that PM Kakar would attend three key thematic events, including preventing an era of global conflict, restoring faith in the global system, and preventing economic fracture.

PM Kakar would also deliver a keynote address on the theme “Trade Tech’s Trillion Dollar Promise” and hold meetings with government and business leaders on the sidelines, she added.

Speaking of other issues, the FO spokesperson said Pakistan rejected the US State Department’s classification of it as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC). “There are serious questions about the credibility and transparency of the process of making such classifications,” she added.

“We also believe that such unilateral, arbitrary, and subjective designations and reports are counterproductive and undermine the objective of advancing religious freedoms,” Baloch said.

Referring to the Gaza situation, the spokesperson added Pakistan supported the application filed by South Africa before the International Court of Justice concerning Israel’s violations of its obligations under the 1951 Genocide Convention about the Palestinian people in Gaza.

“We consider this legal action timely and an important step towards holding Israel to account for its well-documented atrocities unleashed against Palestinian people since 7th October 2023,” she said.

Pakistan, she said, shared the concerns raised in the application by South Africa. “Israel’s ongoing military aggression and actions against the Palestinian people constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity and amount to genocidal acts.”

“We reiterate our call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire; an end to Israel’s unabated massacre of the Palestinian people; an uplifting of an inhumane siege; and expeditious delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people,” she added.

She said Pakistan firmly believed that the only just solution to the Palestinian question was the creation of an independent, viable, sovereign, and contiguous Palestinian state along the pre-June 1967 borders with Al-Quds-Al-Sharif as its capital.