Forthcoming visit of Saudi FM shows ties strengthening, says FO

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has said that the forthcoming visit of Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud to Islamabad reflects that the ties between Islamabad and Riyadh are ‘further strengthening’. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, confirming Saud’s visit without giving any dates, said his counterpart would be leading a high-level delegation soon.

Speaking to the official media, Qureshi pointed out that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia enjoyed “deep, historical and fraternal ties”.

The Saudi foreign minister, after taking charge, had visited Pakistan in December 2019. Prime Minister Imran Khan has visited Saudi Arabia four times since taking office. In his visits, bilateral ties and developments in the region came under discussion. In February last year, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had paid a visit to Pakistan.

While reports have pointed to tensions in bilateral ties with Pakistan paying back $2 billion loan to Saudi Arabia with another $1 billion due, Qureshi in remarks on TV sometime back said Pakistan was prepared that the sum had to be paid back as it was a loan to tide over Pakistan’s financial constraints at the time.

China came up with $2 billion to repay the Saudi loan, with Pakistan preparing to pay back the $1 billion next month. Other reports speak of Saudi pressure on Pakistan to recognize Israel, with Prime Minister Imran Khan in an interview earlier, without naming any country, had said his government was facing pressure to recognize Israel.

Qureshi on Tuesday said Pakistan was not facing any such pressure and the government had already made it clear that it was not going to recognize Israel.

Turning to India, the foreign minister said that New Delhi was using its land against Pakistan. In this regard, he pointed to India training terrorists and the EU DisinfoLab reports, which gave proof of India’s involvement in terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office once again on Tuesday reiterated its call for an independent inquiry under international scrutiny into the extra-judicial killing of three innocent Kashmiri labourers in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

The three Kashmiri labourers were killed by the Indian occupation forces in a staged encounter in July 2020 in Shopian where they had come to work in an apple orchard.

“The revelations that weapons were planted on the bodies of Kashmiri labourers martyred in Kashmir to make it look as though they were armed fighters in a staged gunbattle are only a tip of the iceberg of Indian crimes against the Kashmiri people. The list of India’s crimes against the Kashmiri people is long," said the Foreign Office.

Pakistan asked the international community to hold India accountable for its crimes against the Kashmiri people and work for resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and wishes of the Kashmiri people. More than 300 innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, have been killed in fake encounters and staged ‘cordon and search’ operations during the last one year.

“Pakistan has been consistently drawing the international community’s attention towards extra-judicial killings of innocent Kashmiris by the Indian occupation forces to further perpetuate India’s illegal occupation of IIOJK. Similar findings of extra-judicial killings have been reported by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its two Kashmir reports of 2018 and 2019,” added the Foreign Office.

It called “horrific” the extra-judicial killings of Kashmiri labourers as well as other such acts over the past three decades and said they warrant an investigation by a UN Commission of Inquiry, as recommended by the OHCHR, to expose the brutalities of Indian security forces in IIOJK. “Nothing short of an inquiry under international scrutiny will either meet the requirements of justice or accepted by the Kashmiri people. No cover-up exercises can anymore hide India’s crimes and save it from international censure,” said the Foreign Office.