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Prime Minister Khaleda Zia Friday addressed letters to the leaders of five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the UN secretary general calling for immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon, reports UNB.
In her letters to US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Hu Jintao and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Khaleda expressed Bangladesh's deepest concern over the grave crises which threatens to destabilise the whole Middle East (ME) region.
The Prime Minister urged the P-5 leaders and the UN Secretary General to activate the UN Security Council to take forthright action calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and urgent deployment of an adequate international stabilisation force on the Israel-Lebanon border.
She also called for UN sponsored conference on ways and means to enhance the authority of the Lebanese government and promotion of all initiatives for a peacefully negotiated settlement of the Palestine-Israel conflict including the Quartet Roadmap and the Arab Peace initiative leading to a permanent two-state solution.
Khaleda said that of prime importance are ancillary measures including the release of detainees, safe passage, delivery of relief goods and concerted steps for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the devastated lands.
She said the root causes of the crisis in the ME were well known and that a durable solution could be achieved by pushing all parties to reach a just settlement.
The Prime Minister emphasised that political issues could not be resolved by military means and that history had proved the futility of this approach.
The letter was written in the wake of the consensus among the leaders of the Muslim countries of the special meeting of the extended executive committee summit meeting held in Putrajaya, Malaysia on August 3.
The leaders voiced their extreme disquiet and concern over the situation obtaining in Lebanon and Palestine and of the danger of escalation and spill over in the whole region and the inflammation or radical sentiments and their appeal for peace and sanity.
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