Pakistan PM Imran Khan urges Iran and Saudi Arabia to avoid further escalation during visit
- Pakistan has strong relations with Saudi Arabia but it also maintains good relations with Iran
- Urging both nations against conflict, Khan warned ‘there is a vested interest that wants’ them to clash
Khan held talks with President Hassan Rowhani at the presidential palace and later met with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to the leader’s official website. He is expected to visit Saudi Arabia next on Tuesday.
“The reason for this trip is that we do not want a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” Khan told reporters as he stood alongside Rowhani. “Whatever it takes we must never allow this conflict to take place, because we know, Mr President, that there is a vested interest that wants this to take place.”
Noting that it was a “complex” issue that can be resolved through talks, Khan warned that any conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would “cause poverty in the world”.
Pakistan has strong relations with Saudi Arabia, with more than 2.5 million of its nationals living and working in the kingdom, but it also maintains good relations with Iran and represents Tehran’s consular interests in the US.
This is Khan’s second visit this year to Iran, which shares a border of about 1,000km with Pakistan. Emphasising that the visits to Tehran and Riyadh were Pakistan’s “initiative”, Khan said he was also approached by US President Donald Trump to “facilitate some sort of dialogue between Iran and the United States”.
Tehran and Washington have been at loggerheads since the US withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May last year and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic republic. Rowhani repeated Iran’s official line that the US must return to the deal and lift sanctions before any talks can take place.