TOKYO, May 23 (Bernama) — Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim Thursday reiterated that his meeting with Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khalid Meshaal in Qatar last week was to persuade them for a peaceful solution to the Gaza conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve known them (Hamas leaders) for decades and there\u2019s no reason why we shouldn\u2019t meet them. I said, please respect the decision of your neighbouring countries and try to secure peace, exchange prisoners and accept a two-state solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Is that an offence? Did I promote terrorism? No. I appealed because I have an advantage. What is my advantage? I know them; they consider me a friend.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said this at a question-and-answer session during the Nikkei Forum 29th Future of Asia here in response to a question on his recent meeting with Haniyeh and Meshaal in Doha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Gaza\u2019s situation is a humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale. Let us view it in this context. Never mind the differences in terms of ideologies or bilateral relations with other states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But can we in this period and age condone and turn a blind eye towards the massive atrocities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We can go on discussing what happened on Oct 7, but do not erase seven decades (of atrocities) from the period of Nakba in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That is why I asserted that we go for a peaceful resolution, support the position taken by neighbouring Muslim countries and the international community, and force both parties to accept peace and a two-state solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But what is important now is to stop the killings. Stop shooting women and children, stop the destruction of hospitals, schools, churches and mosques,” Anwar stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the new round of the Israel-Hamas conflict started in October 2023, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with close to 25,000 of the victims being children and women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The meeting on May 13 with Haniyeh, the Hamas Political Bureau chief, and former Hamas chairman Meshaal was Anwar’s first in his capacity as the Malaysian Prime Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anwar had met Haniyeh twice before, in 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wisma Putra, in a statement dated Nov 14, 2018, said Malaysia firmly upholds its position that a two-state solution, in which the Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in peace, based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, is the only viable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— BERNAMA<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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TOKYO, May 23 (Bernama) — Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim Thursday reiterated that his meeting with Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khalid Meshaal in Qatar last week was to persuade them for a peaceful solution to the Gaza conflict. \u201cI\u2019ve known them (Hamas leaders) for decades and there\u2019s no reason why we shouldn\u2019t meet them. I said, please respect the decision of your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":256670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,288,318,301],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264805"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264806,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264805\/revisions\/264806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/256670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}