PPortugal condemns Israel’s “excessive use of force” and “unjustified position” against UN Secretary-General and former Portuguese prime minister António Guterres, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said on Wednesday.
“It is urgent to reverse the escalation of tensions and the trivialisation of violence in this territory [Gaza],” Montenegro told parliament during a debate held on the upcoming European Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
Montenegro reiterated his call for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza to “improve humanitarian aid” and to allow the release of hostages held by Hamas, affirming his support for the Palestinian Authority “for the two-state solution” that Portugal wants to see.
“We condemn Israel’s excessive use of force in Gaza, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, as well as the Israeli government’s unjustified position towards the United Nations secretary-general, considering him ‘persona non grata’,” he said.
Montenegro also said that his government had found “the incidents that have led to the wounding of blue helmets in UN missions in Lebanon to be unacceptable.”
“The recent escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and Iran’s military attack on Israel, which we strongly condemn, are very worrying,” he added.
“We also condemn the disregard for the lives of innocent civilians,” he said.
On the war in Ukraine, Montenegro said the meeting in Brussels on Thursday – to which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been invited – would renew “the European Union’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian government and people in all its dimensions, in line with the bilateral security agreement” signed between Portugal and Ukraine, “and also at European and Atlantic Alliance level.”
(Joana Haderer – edited by Pedro Sousa Carvalho | Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com
