Laos calls for peaceful end to conflict

Laos’s deputy prime minister is now speaking, calling for a peaceful resolution to “the conflict in Palestine.” Thongloun Sisoulith says sanctions don’t help but only hurt countries, likely referring to Gaza and mentioning the embargo on Cuba by name.

The landlocked southeast Asian country, some 6,800 kilometers from Israel, isn’t the only non-neighbor to express concern over the conflict here.

The leader of the tiny island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, for instance, used part of her speech Friday to call for an end to Israel’s “illegal embargo” of the Gaza Strip.

“Trinidad and Tobago remains committed to the negotiation of the two-state solution as the preferred means to bring lasting peace to the region so that the people of Palestine, so long denied their rightful place in the international community, can live in larger freedom with their Israeli brothers and sisters,” Kamla Persad-Bissessar said.