ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain conferred on Tuesday the country’s top civil award — Nishan-i-Pakistan — on Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The award was given at a ceremony at the Presidency which was attended by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, federal ministers, parliamentarians, services chiefs and members of the Chinese delegation.

President Xi was decorated with Nishan-i-Pakistan for his “outstanding contribution in the promotion of the relationship between the two countries”.

He is the third Chinese leader who has been awarded the Nishan-i-Pakistan. The other two recipients are Premier Li Peng and President Hu Jintao.

Previous recipients of the award are Britain’s Queen Elizabeth (1960), Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito (1961), US President Dwight Eisenhower, US President Richard Nixon (1969), Nepal’s King Birendra (1983), Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai (1990) Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah (1992), South African President Nelson Mandela (1992), Chinese Premier Li Peng (1999), Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani (1999), Sultan of Oman Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said (2001), King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia (2006), Chinese President Hu Jintao (2006), Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (2009) and Japanese Emperor Akihito.

CHINESE AWARDS: Chinese President Xi also conferred awards on Pakistani individuals and groups for their contributions to friendship between the two countries.

The recipients of the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Friendship Award’ included Chairman of Pak-China Institute Senator Mushahid Hussain, Chinese memorial park guardian Ali Ahmad Jan, and Pakistan’s former ambassador to China Masood Khan, who is currently serving as director general of Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad.

The institutions that received the award included The National University of Modern Languages for establishing the first Confucius institute in Pakistan, the All Pakistan China Friendship Association, the National Management College, and a Pakistani medical team, which participated in the Wenchuan earthquake relief in 2008.

According to Xinhua, the Chinese official news agency, the Chinese president spoke highly of his steady conviction in China-Pakistan friendship and expressed his gratitude to people from all walks of life of Pakistan who devoted themselves to bilateral friendship.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2015

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