Pak PM visit to Saudi Arabia to assuage Riyadh’s reservations over Malaysia summit

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will visit Saudi Arabia on Saturday to reassure Riyadh about the bilateral ties after it expressed unhappiness over his decision to attend a summit in Malaysia, according to a media report. 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), Dawn newspaper reported.

The increasingly dysfunctional OIC works under the de-facto leadership of the Saudis, it said. 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". Dawn newspaper said 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 paper quoting an Arab source said that the visit has been recently planned after signals from Riyadh that it was not happy with Prime Minister Imran Khan's decision to attend a summit being held in Malaysia from December 18-20. 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.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)