PM Imran Khan will visit Moscow this month at Putin’s invitation: FM Qureshi 

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that Prime Minister Imran Khan will visit Moscow this month at the invitation extended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

In a statement issued on Monday, the foreign minister said that Russian President Putin invited Prime Minister Khan to visit Moscow this month which the latter had accepted. Hailing ties between Pakistan and Russia, he said that the relations between the two countries were on positive trajectory. 

He also declared PM Khan's recent visit to China ‘timely and highly successful’. He said both countries held discussions on bilateral cooperation and deliberated on regional situation including Afghanistan. 

Qureshi said the two countries were committed to early completion of the second phase projects of the CPEC. He said spoilers did not want to see CPEC progressing; however, they would never succeed in their designs.

The FM said it was decided that a meeting of the neighbouring counties of Afghanistan would be convened in Beijing by the end of the next month to discuss the future strategy. He said the Afghan interim government would also be invited to the meeting.

Separately, on opposition’s long march, Foreign Minister Qureshi said that long march was a political necessity for the opposition parties as they were joining their forces in order to protect their vested interests. He claimed that their thinking and philosophy were altogether different and once they attained their interests, they would part their ways.

Qureshi said government had no objection to opposition’s protest whatsoever. If opposition wants to launch long march, we are not worried at all but opposition should keep in mind the country’s interests too, he added. 

He said that the nation knew who had formed the PDM and who were behind its breakup.

Referring to the election for the leader of the opposition, the foreign minister stated that the entire nation knew who had deceived others for only one seat in the house. 

He said a new history was going to be written on March 22-23 as 48th session of the OIC foreign ministers council was going to be held in Islamabad in which issues pertaining to Afghanistan, Palestine, Islamophobia and host of other problems facing the Muslim Ummah would be discussed. 

He stated that he could not say anything about Pakistan’s successful foreign policy but the whole world was praising our policy. He gave Rahul Gandhi’s speech reference in which he lamented the BJP government that tried to isolate Pakistan internationally but it was isolated itself. 

Then he posed a question to PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari whether they had agreed on establishing their governments in their respective provinces further prodding had they reached an agreement: We stay here and you stay there’? 

If both the PML-N and PPP had decided to combine their efforts, then the PTI would fight with them, he concluded.