ISLAMABAD: “Pakistan’s stance on Israel’s violations of human rights is ‘not anti-Semitic, but anti-Zionist’ as we are against genocide. We are not against Jews or Christians, but against all oppressors of humanity,” the president Dr Arif Alvi said while addressing the inaugural session of Second Conference of Parliamentary Assembly of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) countries.

President Dr Arif Alvi urged Muslim states to make themselves economically strong and stable so that their voice could have weight in the international community.

“Your voice will be only heard at global platform if you are economically strong and stable,” he said, expressing the confidence that Muslim countries would join hands in giving the world a strong message on Islamophobia.

President Alvi said the West’s double standards and hypocrisy in the name of “freedom of expression” where the incidents of blasphemy of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) were on rise compared with the intolerance against a slight discussion on Holocaust.

He also said that labeling the freedom movement of Palestinians and Kashmiris as terrorism by Israel and India was another approach of seeing them through the prism of prejudice.

The conference gathered speakers and representatives of national parliaments of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

“There must be a greater trade and connectivity among ECO countries to attain the goals of cohesive regional development and prosperity,” the president said, adding that economic integration among regional states could act as an effective driver to foster sustainable peace and security.

He emphasised the need for proper tapping of the region’s immense resources by the ECO states to nurture alliances for a win-win economic stability. He also called for making a viable regional integration through open trade market for sustainable development and poverty alleviation.

“The ECO region, with its eight million square-kilometre land and 500 million people, comprising six per cent of the world population, has potential to become economic power through institutionalised trade policy reforms,” he said.

President Alvi said that in today’s world, where morality was becoming irrelevant next to the oppressor’s own whims and wishes, a strong leadership and approach promoting the ethos of humanity was direly needed.