Belarus President Lukashenko lands in Islamabad on three-day official visit

ISLAMABAD: Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko has landed in Islamabad on a three-day official visit a day after a 68-member business delegation arrived to bolster bilateral cooperation through a number of agreements in various sectors of the economy.

According to a curtain raiser issued by the Foreign Office, the Belarusian president “will hold extensive talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and discuss areas of bilateral cooperation and engagement”.

Furthermore, the statement said that several agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) would be signed during the visit.

A day earlier, a 68-member high-level delegation from Belarus arrived in the federal capital, which included Belarus' foreign minister, energy minister, minister for justice, minister for transport, minister for natural resources, minister for emergency situations, and chairman of the Military Industry Committee.

Forty-three prominent business personalities of Belarus are also part of the delegation.

The prime minister of Belarus, Roman Golovchenko, was in Islamabad earlier this year for the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) Meeting, where he met his counterpart among other key leaders.

The visit comes amid Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) "do-or-die" protest call, which prompted authorities to seal off Islamabad’s Red Zone.

The former ruling party has demanded the release of incarcerated leaders, including PTI founder Imran Khan, the return of the "stolen mandate" in the February 8 elections and the withdrawal of the judiciary-centric 26th Constitutional Amendment.

The former ruling party, for months, has been engaged in a political tug-of-war with the ruling coalition — which it alleges came into power via rigged February 8 polls — and has held multiple protests in the federal capital.