Prime Minister Imran Khan telephoned Saudi Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and discussed bilateral and regional matters with special focus on drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities last week, Radio Pakistan reported.
During the telephone conversation, the premier offered Pakistan’s full support and capabilities to the kingdom following the attack.
Prices of petroleum products are likely to go up by up to Rs 12 in coming days owing to an increase in the international market following an attack on Saudi Arabia’s energy giant Aramco last week, slashing the Arab kingdom’s oil production by half.
FM says Imran will visit Saudi Arabia tomorrow
The attack that shut five percent of global crude output has triggered the biggest surge in oil prices since 1991.
Europe’s benchmark Brent crude surged by 20 percent and US counterpart WTI by 15 percent as commodities trading got underway and after President Donald Trump warned that the US was “locked and loaded” to respond to the attacks that Washington blamed on Iran. Tehran rejected the claim but Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition was bogged down in a five-year war, claimed Saturday’s strikes on two plants owned by Aramco. The United States reiterated it was studying all available options in how it would confront an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities. In the call to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper affirmed Washington’s full support for Saudi Arabia following the attacks.
Meanwhile, it was informed that Imran Khan, accompanied by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, will visit Saudi Arabia on September 19. Qureshi, while addressing the All Parties Kashmir Conference organised by PTI Punjab in Lahore, said, “We have important sittings over there. Keeping those sittings at the forefront, we will have to deliberate on further measures.” “I think it is enough to say just this right now,” the foreign minister added.
