PM Shehbaz Sharif leaves for Saudi Arabia tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, along with various Sharif family members, ministers and leaders of political parties, which are part of the current ruling alliance, will leave for Saudi Arabia on Wednesday (tomorrow).

He presided over a meeting here on Monday to review preparations for his official visit to Saudi Arabia. He told the meeting that Pakistan valued its long-standing brotherly ties with Saudi Arabia and it was looking forward to enhancing the same in future. He directed the relevant authorities to make effective recommendations for strengthening the Pak-Saudi Arabia bilateral relations, especially in the areas of energy, food security, employment and long-term strategic partnership.

This is Shehbaz Sharif’s first foreign visit since assuming the office of prime minister. Separately, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb Monday clarified that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was neither going to Saudi Arabia on a chartered plane nor any journalist was going with him at the government expenses.

The minister, who said this in response to a statement by PTI leader Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, contended that truth and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf were two contradictory things. “A former information minister should be ashamed of making such a baseless statement against journalists while the prime minister is not going to use a chartered plane,” she asserted.

Ch Fawad Hussain had said in a tweet that when Imran Khan had adopted the austerity policy, a number of journalists had made fun of it. “Now an aeroplane full of journalists is being taken to Saudi Arabia. They are the same journalists who had been enjoying feasts at PM House these days.

“They will go to Saudi Arabia to seek Allah's mercy for them over their sins. But will it be an act according to the Sharia if they go there on the government expenses,” the ex-minister had raised a question.

However, the information minister rejected these claims of Fawad Ch, saying “fake news is your identity and falsehood. Before tweeting, you should know that no journalist is going at the government expense, while Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is also going by a commercial flight. He is going to Saudi Arabia at his own expense,” she clarified.

Marriyum Aurangzeb also claimed that for 10 years as the Punjab chief minister, Shehbaz used to pay his travel expenses out of his own pocket. “As the media had done him a favour, Imran Sahib retaliated against the media with his evil for four years. When he was in power, he would close down channels, programs and columns and break the ribs of journalists,” she charged.

“After thrown out of power, now they are levelling accusations. Sometimes, they accuse journalists of involvement in conspiracies and sometimes they send false tweets of visits,” she added.

Marriyum suggested to Fawad to also do a tweet on the watch, necklace and rings; [but he will not do so as] it is linked to condition of awakening of conscience, she added. Imran Sahib's drama of austerity for four years is in front of everyone today, in the form of the biggest fiscal deficit in history. “So keep your lectures with you,” she said. “Shut your shop of lying,” she added.