Palestine and Kashmir: Unified stance testifies close ties with Malaysia

ISLAMABAD: Leader of the House in Senate Dr Shahzad Waseem Monday said that unified stance on Palestine and Kashmir “testifies close relationship between Pakistan and Malaysia,” and these mutual ties need to be strengthened further by enhancing economic cooperation.

“Strong relationship between Malaysia and Pakistan is visible from the frequency of high-level interactions between the two sides,” he said during a meeting with outgoing High Commissioner of Malaysia to Pakistan Ikram Mohammad Ibrahim.

The envoy paid the senator a farewell call at the latter’s residence. “We want our relationship to grow further by utilizing the economic potential in both the sides,” Dr Shahzad said.

He said bilateral trade, investment and tourism between the two countries needed to be further explored.

“The present state of bilateral economic ties does not commensurate with the potential and there is need to explore possibility of cooperation in diverse fields,” he added.

Senate’s leader of the house further said that Pakistan profoundly values its “cordial and brotherly relations with Malaysia.”

“Both the countries have always supported each other at international forums which can be witnessed from the fact that both value bilateral relations,” he said. He pointed out that geostrategic location of both Pakistan and Malaysia calls for strong connectivity through direct flights between both countries.

The outgoing Malaysian envoy said that Pakistan is an important regional country and Malaysia wants to further deepen mutual ties and strengthen linkages for mutual benefit of the people of two sides.

He informed the senator regarding plans to increase imports of agricultural products from Pakistan.

The Covid-19 situation was also discussed during the meeting. The high commissioner appreciated the efforts of Pakistani government to ‘mitigate the threat posed by the virus.’

The envoy also lauded robust vaccination programme launched by the government of Pakistan.

Dr Shahzad acknowledged the contributions of the outgoing Malaysian high commissioner in strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021