Saudi Arabia strongly denies reports of 'pressuring' Pakistan to withdraw from Malaysia summit

The Saudi Embassy in Pakistan on Saturday dismissed reports circulating that Riyadh had pressured Islamabad to skip the four-day summit in Kuala Lumpur.

In a statement the Saudi mission said that the “news promoted by some parties about alleged pressures exerted on Pakistan by the Kingdom to discourage it from participating in the mini-summit held in Malaysia, were baseless and fake”.

The embassy stressed that such “false reports” have already been “denied by the nature of solid brotherly relations between the two brotherly countries.”

The mission stated that the two countries agree on the importance of “unity of the Islamic nation” and maintaining the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The statement emphasised the “mutual respect of sovereignty and the independence”, adding that it is a key feature of the “well-established historical relations”. 

The Saudi denial comes a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had claimed that Riyadh issued economic threats to Pakistan to pressurise it into withdrawing from a gathering of leaders in Malaysia.

The four-day conference, which opened in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday to address some of the Islamic world's thorniest issues. 

Saudi Arabia said its leaders were not attending the summit because it was being held outside the aegis of the 57-member OIC based in Jeddah.