KARACHI: The Baloch militant organisations are no longer a threat to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), said Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing, adding that members of banned outfits were “not true Pakistanis”.

In an interview to BBC Urdu, he sounded confident that Gwadar port would soon become one of the world’s trading hubs as the security situation in Pakistan had improved to a large extent in the last few years. “If they [Baloch militants] are true Pakistanis, they should work in the interest of Pakistan,” he said brushing aside their capacity of becoming a threat to China, Pakistan and their CPEC project.

Mr Yao said he was satisfied with the security provided to about 10,000 Chinese nationals working on different CPEC projects in Pakistan which also has some 60,000 local people on different jobs.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2018