KUWAIT: The Palestinian issue still has a central, historical and pivotal position in the Arab and Islamic worlds, Representative of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said on Friday. He also affirmed Kuwait's firm and steadfast stance in supporting the choices of the Palestinian people to obtain their legitimate rights.

Furthermore, he stressed the importance of continuing efforts to resume negotiations within a specific timetable to reach a just and comprehensive peace in accordance with the references of the peaceful process, international legitimacy decisions, the Arab peace initiative, and end the Israeli occupation as well as establish an independent Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the borders before June 4, 1967. He appreciated, in this context, all international efforts aimed at resolving this key issue.

Facing the pandemic
This came during Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled's speech at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly via videoconference. Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled commended the exceptional roles played by the UN to face the novel coronavirus pandemic. These roles "were shown through harnessing all methods and measures to address this pandemic by accelerating work on providing vaccines, diagnostic tools, and treatment to all people and everywhere," he said.

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled congratulated Volkan Bozkir on being elected President of UN General Assembly, expressing Kuwait's full support to facilitate the assembly's works and responsibilities, and appreciating efforts made by former UNGA president Tijani Mohammad-Bandi. The 75th session of the UNGA is being held amid unprecedented conditions, which affected the whole world, he said, referring to the repercussions of the novel coronavirus on all countries across the globe.

He offered sincere condolences to the world's peoples and countries over those died due to the pandemic. He stressed the importance of enhancing the implemented environmental, social, healthy and economic systems, pointing to the deaths of 960,000 due to the coronavirus pandemic and the infections of more than 3 million others as well as the highest waves of recession the world didn't see since the aftermath of World War II.

The pandemic has contributed to increasing crises the countries are suffering from and enlarged challenges facing their people of which unfortunately the Arab and Middle Eastern region have got the largest share, despite the presence of written solutions and the described remedial methods represented in the abundant amount of international references of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly's resolutions and outcomes, he noted. However, the chronic challenge regarding implementing and seriously dealing with their provisions remained an obstacle to move forward towards achieving the desired progress, he stated.

Within the framework of its responsibilities to back efforts of the international community to combat the pandemic, Kuwait donated about $290 million, stressing its commitment to cooperation so as to support all international efforts to facilitate producing vaccines and offer them fairly to the neediest countries. He announced that Kuwait is ready to host critical cases of the UN's employees and the field workers in Central and Western Asia infected by the coronavirus to receive treatment in hospitals in Kuwait.

Yemen's crisis
On Yemen, he said that the continuation of Yemen's crisis, which poses dangerous threats to regional stability and security, is a clear signal of a reality on how to deal with the relevant resolutions and outcomes of the UN Security Council, stressing the importance of implementing the Stockholm Agreement. "In this context, we renew our firm position that the Yemeni crisis can only be resolved politically based on the three agreed upon references, the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanisms, the outcomes of the national dialogue and the UN resolutions mainly 2261, renewing our support to all efforts made by UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Yemen aimed at resuming the political process to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis," he said.

He urged all parties to respond positively and agree to the proposals he presented, welcoming the constructive roles played by the sisterly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to activate the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement, renewing Kuwait's condemnation of all the attacks on the Saudi territories, and affirming its support for all measures taken by the Kingdom to preserve its security and stability. Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled stressed Kuwait's firm position that the Syrian crisis can be only solved by negotiations as they are the only way for ending this humanitarian disaster which entered its tenth year, calling on all parties to be involved positively in these talks.

On Libya, he said Kuwait renews its call for all Libyan parties to self-restraint and prioritize peaceful solutions based on dialogue and rejecting violence, welcoming the positive results made during the talks to draw a roadmap so as to unify the State's sovereign institutions in line with the UN Security Council resolutions mainly 2501 and the outcomes of the international and regional conferences.

Kuwait renews its call for Iran to take serious measures to build confidence and start dialogue based on respecting the sovereignty of the countries and not to interfering into their domestic affairs as well as reducing tensions in the Gulf in a manner that contributes to establishing ties based on mutual respect and cooperation and reflecting future aspirations of all countries of the region, he added. - KUNA