Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday said that Pakistan fully supported Iran’s call for an “extraordinary meeting” of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) after the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran, the Foreign Office (FO) said in a press release.
The Islamic Republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had earlier threatened a “harsh punishment” for Haniyeh’s killing, led prayers for the Palestinian leader’s burial in Qatar on Thursday.
Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for Pezeshkian’s inauguration ceremony when he was killed.
Thousands of mourning crowds carrying posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags gathered for the ceremony at Tehran University before a procession.
Haniyeh’s death was announced by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who said he and his bodyguard were killed in a strike on their accommodation in the Iranian capital at 2am on Wednesday.
It came just hours after Israel targeted and killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a retaliatory strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut, sending fears of a wider regional conflict soaring in the fallout from the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
Israel has declined to comment on the Tehran strike.
Iran’s conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran “will certainly carry out the supreme leader’s order [to avenge Haniyeh]”. “It is our duty to respond at the right time and in the right place,” he said in a speech with crowds chanting “Death to Israel, Death to America!”
In a telephonic conversation with Dar today, Acting Foreign Minister of Iran Ali Bagehri Kani shared his country’s deep anguish on the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
FM Dar conveyed to his Iranian counterpart that Pakistan shared their sentiments, adding that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had condemned the developments in Gaza and the atrocious assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in the “strongest possible terms”.
Moreover, the National Assembly unanimously condemned the killing, which it said was against “international law, established diplomatic norms and acceptable behaviour amongst the comity of nations”.
Kani requested Dar to participate in the “extraordinary meeting” of the OIC being convened on this matter at the “foreign ministers level”.
The meeting has been requested by Iran and is likely to be held in the near future, the FO said.
Dar fully supported the call for an extraordinary meeting and confirmed that Pakistan would “actively participate” in the “important meeting”.
