ISLAMABAD: As the four-day Kuala Lumpur summit comes to a close on Saturday, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia denied reports that Riyadh had exerted any pressure on Islamabad to keep it away from the event attended by the leadership of other Muslim countries.

The Embassy of Saudi Arabia said the news promoted by some parties about any pressures exerted on Pakistan by Saudi Arabia to discourage it from participating in the summit were ‘baseless’ and ‘fake’.

The statement came on the day when Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad while addressing the closing ceremony of the event said that it was up to any country, including Saudi Arabia, to decide if it wanted to attend the KL summit.

Just a day back the Foreign Office spokesperson had explained that Pakistan had not participated in the summit as time and efforts were needed to address the “concerns of major Muslim countries regarding possible division in the Ummah”. The FO added that Pakistan would continue to work for the unity and solidarity of the Ummah, which was indispensable for effectively addressing the challenges faced by the Muslim world.

Embassy terms reports promoted by some parties ‘fake’, ‘baseless’

Islamabad’s explanation and Riyadh’s denial of reports came after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted by the media as saying that Saudi Arabia had coerced Pakistan into skipping the summit by threatening to expel its four million nationals working in Saudi Arabia despite the fact that Prime Minister Imran Khan had already confirmed his participation in the event.

In the statement issued here on Saturday, the Saudi embassy said: “These false reports were already denied by the nature of solid brotherly relations between the two brotherly countries, and their agreement on the importance of the unity of the Islamic nation, maintaining the role of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), mutual respect for their sovereignty and the independence of their decisions, which is a key feature of the well established historical relations between them.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a press conference that Pakistan had decided not to attend the summit in order to assert neutrality as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had expressed concerns that the move could cause a division among the Muslim countries and lead to the setting up of an entity parallel to the OIC, a 57-member pan-Islamic body headquartered in Jeddah.

The Turkish media then quoted President Erdogan as saying that Saudi Arabia threatened to expel Pakistani expatriates living in the kingdom and withdraw the amount deposited in the State Bank of Pakistan last year for shoring up foreign exchange reserves. “Unfortunately, we see that Saudi Arabia pressures Pakistan. Now there are promises that the country has given to Pakistan regarding the central bank. However, more than that, there are four million Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia. They (threaten by saying that they) would send (Pakistanis) back and re-employ Bangladeshi people instead,” Mr Erdogan said. According to the Turkish leader, Pakistan had to fall in line due to its economic difficulties.

Despite this embarrassing disclosure by President Erdogan about PM Khan’s absence from the KL summit, Malaysia and Turkey kept Pakistan involved in the project for setting up a TV channel for countering Islamophobia.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah tweeted that Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan would together establish the TV channel. the Malaysian prime minister, PM Khan and President Erdogan had agreed to establish the TV channel at a meeting held in New York in September.

Pakistan, before opting out of the summit, had committed to three projects involving the countries participating in the Kuala Lumpur process. These projects were about media collaboration, defence and security cooperation, and the youth.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2019