NEW DELHI: Foreign minister S Jaishankar on Saturday supported the
two-state solution
for the permanent solution of the ongoing
Israel-Palestine conflict
.
Speaking at the Institute of South Asian Studies of National University, during his three-day visit to Singapore, the minister said that ‘very serious efforts’ are underway to bring peace in the region. However, he declined to elaborate on what those efforts are, Jaishankar said, “We (India) are very, very supportive of the efforts of a few countries who are working right now to find a way out of the present situation.”
Responding to a question on India’s role in the conflict, Jaishankar said that India is very clear that what happened on October 7 was ‘terrorism‘.
“There cannot be any defence of it. There cannot be any caveats to it. I think we need to call that out, which we did, very unambiguously,” he added.
Commenting on how Israel is responding, Jaishankar said, India has taken a view that “(in case of) any response, the care has to be taken about civilian casualties; international humanitarian law needs to be observed.”
“We are in a situation today where clearly, the need is to find a way of delivering humanitarian aid to a civilian population on a sustainable basis. But beyond that, I think there is a larger, longer-term issue really,” the minister said.
“What do you do on a more permanent basis?” he said, and immediately answered himself: “And we are very clear that we have to find a two-state solution.”
The foreign minister also described how India ‘manages relationships’ with both Israel and Palestine.
The Hams militants from Gaza Strip attacked Israel on October 7 through land, sea and air routes. The attacks killed at least 12,00 Israelis, while another 230 were taken hostages.
The unprecedented attack prompted Israel to launch an all-out attack on Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 32,000 Palestinians, two-third of them are women and children.
