Pakistan, KSA agree to strengthen parliamentary friendship ties
Pakistan Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Raja Ali Ejaz on Monday met with Shoura Council Speaker Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammed Al-Asheikh to discuss bilateral cooperation and ways to enhance them.
“They focused on how to mobilize parliamentary relations among Pakistan’s National Assembly, the Senate and the Saudi Shoura Council, and discussed how to make the Pak-Saudi Parliamentary Friendship Committee more effective so that it could play a role in furthering the relations of the two brotherly countries,” a statement from the Consulate General of Pakistan in Jeddah said. Members of the Saudi-Pakistani Parliamentary Friendship Committee of the Shoura Council held a meeting last week. Moreover, Al-Asheikh visited Pakistan in April this year to further bilateral ties, and in December last year, a Pakistani delegation led by chairman of the Senate of Pakistan, Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, visited
Saudi Arabia on Al-Asheikh’s invitation.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan envoy last week briefed prominent Saudi editors and journalists on the deteriorating human rights situation in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The Pakistan Embassy in Riyadh said: “The ambassador talked about the genesis of the Kashmir dispute and highlighted UN Security Council resolutions that promised the right of self-determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.” Tensions have been running high between India and Pakistan after New Delhi on Aug. 5 revoked the special constitutional status of the disputed Himalayan region under its administrative control by abolishing Article 370 of the Indian constitution. Islamabad reacted with fury at India’s decision, cutting trade and transport ties and expelling the Indian ambassador.
Ejaz said that the Indian decision to repeal Article 370 was primarily meant to change the demographics of Kashmir. He reiterated Pakistan’s political, diplomatic and moral support for the Kashmiri people and highlighted that former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru also made a commitment to decide the fate of the state as per the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.