ISLAMABAD: President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas will arrive in Islamabad today (Monday) on a three-day visit, where one of the highlights of his visit will be the joint inauguration of the newly-constructed Palestine Embassy Complex in the Diplomatic Enclave, together with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Spokesman at the Foreign Office said that the honoured guest would be accompanied by a 17-member delegation, five amongst them would be ministers. This is the third visit of the Palestinian president, and the first after the recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state by the United Nations. Pakistan is a strong ally which had co-sponsored the resolution in the United Nations General Assembly to grant the status to Palestine.

The spokesman said in a statement that during the visit President Abbas would have a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif followed by delegation-level talks. The new Palestinian Embassy Complex has been built on a plot gifted in 1992 and later in 2013 while the government also contributed towards its construction.

President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation will also meet the President of Pakistan. This will be followed by a state banquet in his honour. Bilateral political matters as well as other issues of common interest will be discussed between the two heads of state.

“The relations between Pakistan and Palestine have traditionally been strong. Pakistan has consistently supported the creation of an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state, with pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital. Pakistan has also extended support to the Palestinian struggle for their independent homeland, in all international forums”, added the spokesman.

Earlier, according to the office of Pakistan’s permanent representative at the UN, Dr Maleeha Lodhi, while addressing the UN Security Council, emphasised that a just solution of Palestine-Israel dispute would not only usher in enduring peace in the Middle East but also deal a blow to the appeal of extremist organisations like Daesh and al-Qaeda.

Speaking in a debate on the Middle East situation, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi warned that unless justice is done to the Palestinian people, the basic narrative of extremist ideologies that Muslim people could secure justice only through resort to force, would be difficult to defeat. “Palestine, the holy land, is the heart of the Arab and Islamic world; what happens to Palestine and its people will resonate throughout the region,” the Pakistani envoy told the 15-member Council.

Ambassador Lodhi said that for 50 years, Israel had persisted in its occupation of the West Bank in defiance of the Charter’s central tenet that territories could not be acquired through the use of force and aggression.

Establishment of a viable, independent and contiguous State of Palestine, on the basis of internationally agreed parameters, the pre-1967 borders, and with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, was the only sustainable guarantee for peace, she said.

“It is clear that the movement of any state’s embassy to Jerusalem will also manifestly violate the Security Council resolutions,” Lodhi said, obviously referring to recent statements by the incoming Trump administration officials that relocation of American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was a “very big priority”.

She welcomed the recent Security Council resolution affirming that the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank were likely to foreclose a two-state solution and called for its implementation.