ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will visit Saudi Arabia today to reassure its leadership that the bilateral ties remained firm after Riyadh expressed unhappiness over his decision to attend a summit in Malaysia, according to a media report.
The Dawn quoted an Arab said that the visit has been recently planned after signals from Riyadh that it was not happy with Prime Minister Khan’s decision to attend Kuala Lumpur summit being held in Malaysia from December 18-20.
The Saudis are seeing the summit in Kuala Lumpur as an attempt to present an alternative to the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the report said.The increasingly dysfunctional OIC works under the de-facto leadership of the Saudis, it said. The Pakistan Foreign Office, however, said in a statement that prime minister Khan will visit Saudi Arabia as part of the regular exchanges between the leadership of the two countries.
“The consultations will cover bilateral matters and recent developments in the regional context,” it said. The statement came after the media reports said Khan was to visit Riyadh to reassure the kingdom’s leadership that ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia remain firm despite Islamabad’s engagement with other Muslim countries.
Earlier, Prime Minister Khan dispatched Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to mollify Riyadh, where he met his counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah. According to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the two foreign ministers besides talking on the bilateral agenda also “discussed the latest developments at regional and international arenas”.
Prime Minister Khan will visit Saudi Arabia on Saturday to reassure the Kingdom’s leadership that ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia remain firm despite Islamabad”s engagement with other Muslim countries, the report said. The Kuala Lumpur summit is the brainchild of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Other leaders participating in the summit are Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Indonesian President Joko Widodo too was expected to attend the summit, but he has reportedly succumbed to pressure and one of his representatives would now attend the meeting.
The plan for the summit was finalised during a trilateral meeting involving Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia in September in New York on the sidelines of the UNGA session. Foreign Office (FO) spokesman Mohammad Faisal at his weekly briefing on Thursday when asked about the visit said :”The prime minister has undertaken at least three visits to Saudi Arabia since May this year. Any further information about any future visit will be shared accordingly. Khan over the past few months had attempted to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran.