PM Imran Meets Sri Lankan President

(@fidahassanain)

PM Imran meets Sri Lankan President

Prime Minister Imran Khan and Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa discuss matters of mutual interest in the meeting.

COLOMBO: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-Feb 24th, 2021) Prime Minister Imran Khan held one on one meeting with Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at Presidential Secretariat in Colombo on Wednesday.

Matters of mutual interest were discussed in the meeting.

Taking to Twitter, Prime Minister Imran Khan had said: “We had interesting conversations on a wide range of issues of mutual interest. I want to especially thank @PresRajapaksa for the gala dinner this evening. Tomorrow I will be meeting the Sri Lankan President@GotabayaR followed by a meeting with the Sri Lankan business community,”.

Addressing a joint press conference along with his Sri Lankan Counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that both Pakistan and Sri Lanka shared common problems incuding terrorism. He said both countries had suffered a lot due to this menace. He stated that Pakistan faced a worst kind of terrorism for ten years and lost around 70,000 people.

He said that Pakistan is part of Belt and Road Initiative of China and CPEC is the flagship project of this programme, which offers great opportunities of connectivity and trade.

Prime Minister Imran Khan emphasized on finding ways and means to enhance trade and connectivity through China-Pakistan Economic Corridor right up to Central Asia for Sri Lanka. Imran Khan said they discussed areas where they could enhance trading ties between Pakistan and Sri Lanka and the latter can get maximum benefit from the connectivity being offered by the former. He further said that Pakistan played its part in helping Sri Lanka to curb terrorism from its soil, which was impeding development, growth, and the tourism. He said no country can progress if there is terrorism. Coronavirus, he said, was now another challenge. The Covid-19 pandemic hit the poor countries the most and they should be entitled to get debt relief from the richer nations, he added.

Fida Hussnain

Fida Hussnain is a lahore based journalist. He writes on politics, religion, social issues and climate change. He is also a research fellow at University of Gujrat.