Pakistan urges for a Saudi-Iran line of communication

Sharif’s trip to Saudi Arabia follows the visit of both the Saudi foreign minister and deputy crown prince to Islamabad last week, underlining the closeness of the relationship between the two states.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is making his first tour of the Middle East this week, with stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Those two countries have traditionally underpinned China’s Middle East relations, but they won’t be the only places Xi visits.

In announcing the January 18-19 visit to exchange views on regional and worldwide issues, a Pakistani foregn office statement did not mention whether Nawaz Sharif would fly directly from Riyadh to Tehran or make separate visits to the two countries. “Pakistan is ready to play its role in establishing stability in the region”.

A report has appeared on the media linking Somalia’s government of receiving aid from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia a day after it cut diplomatic ties with the Iranian government.

Xi chose the Middle East as the destination for his first overseas visit in 2016. “If compared with the Great Chinese Cultural Revolution, the trip of the top official in the Chinese establishment to the Middle East countries is a sort of the Great Chinese Political Revolution”, Malashenko told TASS.

The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has taken to Twitter in recent days to criticize Iran and poke fun at his Iranian counterpart.

“China is the biggest importer of Middle Eastern oil”, Zhu said.

“We are ready to jointly address the challenge of terrorism”, the vice foreign minister said.

Mainland diplomatic observers said Beijing did not want to be seen as taking sides in the dispute, and would call for restraint and dialogue to resolve tensions.

“China firmly supports Arab national liberation movement, firmly supports Arab countries’ struggle to uphold sovereignty and territorial integrity, pursue and safeguard national interests, and combat external interference and aggression, and firmly supports Arab countries’ cause of developing the national economy and building up the countries”. China is opposed to double standards on anti-terrorism and in connecting terrorism with specific religious and ethnic issues. “So the whole world is watching the visit of the Chinese leader to the Middle East”, Malashenko said.

“Iran, even when it was encircled by the West, was occupying several countries”.

Financial cooperation will also become an important point of cooperation between China and the three countries, Zhang said. The Prime Minister reiterated that “the people of Pakistan would always stand with the people of Saudi Arabia against any threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom”.