FG to Israel: Stop war on Gaza

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has said Israel must stop its war on Gaza, and the world needs to drop its “double standards” over the killings in the besieged enclave.

Tuggar was visiting Qatar as part of a delegation led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Nigeria and Qatar signed a series of memorandums of understanding and discussed potential collaboration in sectors such as energy, trade, labour, agriculture and more.

Asked on his thoughts on the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza where more than 30,000 people have been killed, he said there is no justification for the carnage that is going on in Gaza, noting that the war has to stop.

According to him, there is no justification for the complete disregard for the proportionality of force that is being meted out on innocent civilians, on kids on children, on babies on women.

He noted that, “Nigeria has been consistent with its support for a two-state solution. The state of Palestine has every right to exist as an independent sovereign nation, the same way that Israel has a right to exist as an independent sovereign nation.

“But this carnage is completely out of hand and totally unacceptable. There is no way to explain the double standards; it has to stop.”

At least 30,631 Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli war on Gaza, the health ministry in the besieged territory has said.

Also, at least 97 people were reported to have been killed and 123 others were injured over the past 24 hours, while another 72,043 people have been wounded since Israel’s war began on October 7 after the Hamas attack.

Speaking on the war in Ukraine, as the US and EU have been pressuring other countries to join in on sanctions against Russia, while Nigeria has maintained a neutral, non-aligned stance.

He told Al Jazeera that the non-aligned stance has been the policy of the state of Nigeria since its inception, since it was created in 1960. “Nigeria was part of the non-aligned movement and has remained so and at the moment we’re currently practising what is now referred to as strategic autonomy.

“We get along with all countries, and we’re not the only country that has that policy. Nigeria has always been an independent sovereign nation. So, we are not compelled to follow any other country’s lead. We do what is right for our people, what’s in the interest of our people.

“We get along famously with both of them [the US and Russia]. They also don’t have a problem with us being autonomous, being an independent country, with the freedom to maintain relations with all nations,” he added.