Saudi foreign minister to visit Pakistan for wide-ranging talks
Officials said that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will lead his delegation, which will include officials from the ministries of water and agriculture, energy, investment and industry and mineral resources.
“This visit is aimed at lending positive impetus to enhanced bilateral cooperation and mutually rewarding economic partnerships,” according to a Pakistani foreign ministry statement.
The visit comes more than a week after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif traveled to Saudi Arabia for wide-ranging bilateral talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
A joint statement issued after the visit said that both leaders had “affirmed their commitment to expediting the first wave of the investment package worth $5 billion, which was discussed previously.”
Sunday’s Pakistani statement said that the talks with the Saudi delegation are scheduled “essentially to follow up on the understanding reached” during Sharif’s meeting with the Saudi crown prince on April 7.
Cash-strapped Pakistan is seeking Saudi investments to strengthen its current account deficit. Additionally, it must signal to the International Monetary Fund that Islamabad can meet the foreign financing requirements, which have been a key demand from the global lender in previous bailout programs.
Critics remain skeptical about official claims of imminent Saudi investments resulting from this week’s talks between the two countries. They say various figures for Saudi investments have been officially cited several times in recent years, but nothing has materialized to date.
Middle East tensions
Analysts predict that escalating tensions in the Middle East will be a key topic of discussion in the talks between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which shares a 900-kilometer (559-mile) border with Iran.
Israel announced Sunday that Iran launched 320 warheads against it in “an unprecedented attack” but that its air defenses, along with those of the United States and other supportive countries, shot down 99% of them. The Iranian attack was a response to a suspected Israeli strike on Tehran’s embassy in Damascus two weeks ago.
The meetings between Pakistani and Saudi officials “likely originally envisaged to focus on economic and energy cooperation will take on a decidedly more geopolitical focus,” Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Pakistan said Sunday it was watching with “deep concern” the developments in the Middle East.
“Today’s developments demonstrate the consequences of the breakdown of diplomacy. … It is now critically urgent to stabilize the situation and restore peace. We call on all parties to exercise utmost restraint and move towards de-escalation,” a foreign ministry statement said in Islamabad.