Prime Minister Imran Khan is delivering a virtual address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) today.
In his address, the prime minister shone a light on the country's efforts to curb the coronavirus and noted that Pakistan's response was recognised as one of the "success stories" in controlling the disease.
"However, we are still not out of the woods like no country is out of the woods today," said Prime Minister Imran, adding that from the outset of the pandemic, developing countries were at a disadvantage due to lack of fiscal resources.
He also directed UNGA's attention towards money laundering and corruption by the elite of developing countries who stash their wealth in tax havens in developed countries."Since they are beneficiaries, there is a lack of political will in the rich countries to curb this criminal activity," he declared and added that if money launderers were provided with sanctuaries, the gulf between poor and rich countries will continue to grow and may lead to a bigger challenge than the current migration crisis.
The prime minister lamented that global community should have come together to combat the novel coronavirus, it had instead stoked racism and religious hatred. Islamophobia was rising in several countries, he said, adding that Muslims were being killed with , mosques were being desecrated and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was being insulted "in the name of freedom of speech".
He also warned that India had "upped its military ante" against Pakistan in order to divert attention from its domestic problems. The premier once again directed the world community's attention towards the human rights violations by the Indian government in occupied Kashmir.
The prime minister also spoke about Israel's occupation of Palestine and said that Pakistan supported a solution in line with UN resolutions.
Unique UNGA session
The current session, which is the 75th session of the UNGA, is unique in the world body’s history with leaders not attending in person and other meetings being held online.
World leaders will send recorded video statements, which would be introduced by the respective country’s envoy, and then played in the UNGA Hall “as live”.
At the 74th UNGA session last year, PM Khan had highlighted the suffering of Kashmiris and the Indian move to annex the occupied territory in a speech stretching more than 45 minutes,
He had said that the very first action that India needed to take was to lift the curfew in occupied Kashmir and then release all detained prisoners. "And then the world community must give the Kashmiris the right of self-determination," he had stressed.
PM moots strategy to end flight of ‘graft dollars’
A day earlier, the premier had presented a nine-point strategy before the international community to stop the flight of “corruption dollars” from poor to rich countries, which he said was bleeding developing economies.
He had made the remarks before a high-level panel on Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI), which met in New York on Thursday on the sidelines of the UNGA.
The prime minister had urged rich nations to take immediate steps to return the “stolen assets” of developing nations.
Noting that each year, billions of dollars illicitly flew out of developing countries, PM Imran had said his government came to power with a robust public mandate to get rid of corruption.
“We have taken several initiatives domestically. What is needed is strengthening international cooperation to bring perpetrators of financial crime to justice,” he had said. “This bleeding of the poorer countries must stop. International community must adopt decisive actions.”
