Pakistan will hold high-level meetings with Saudi Arabia on Monday and Tuesday to strengthen economic and energy cooperation between the two allies.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will lead the delegation, which will include officials from the ministries of water resources, agriculture, energy, investment and industry and mineral resources, officials said.
“The visit is aimed at providing positive impetus for strengthening bilateral cooperation and mutually beneficial economic partnership,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The visit comes more than a week after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif traveled to Saudi Arabia for extensive bilateral talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
A joint statement issued after the visit said the two leaders “confirmed their commitment to accelerate the first wave of investment plans worth US$5 billion, which has been discussed previously”.
A Pakistani statement on Sunday said the planned talks with the Saudi delegation were “essentially to implement the understanding reached during Sharif’s meeting with the Saudi crown prince on April 7.”
Cash-strapped Pakistan is seeking Saudi investment to widen its current account deficit. Additionally, it must signal to the International Monetary Fund that Islamabad can meet foreign financing requirements, a key requirement in previous IMF bailouts.
Critics remain skeptical of official claims that Saudi Arabia is on the verge of making investments during talks between the two countries this week. Various figures on Saudi investment have been cited by officials many times in recent years, but so far there have been no concrete results, they said.
tensions in the middle east
Analysts predict that rising tensions in the Middle East will become a key topic in negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which shares a 900-kilometer (559-mile) border with Iran.
Israel announced on Sunday that Iran fired 320 warheads at it in an “unprecedented attack” but that its air defenses, along with those of the United States and other supporting countries, shot down 99 percent of them. Iran’s attack was in response to a suspected Israeli attack on Tehran’s embassy in Damascus two weeks ago.
Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, said on politics”. It’s called Twitter.
Pakistan said on Sunday it was “deeply concerned” about developments in the Middle East.
“Today’s developments prove the consequences of the breakdown of diplomacy. … There is an urgent need to stabilize the situation and restore peace. We call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and strive to ease tensions,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement in Islamabad.
