PM Imran to visit Malaysia on Feb 3-4 on Mahathir Mohamad's invitation

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has accepted an invitation by his Malaysian counterpart Mahathir Mohamad to visit the country on February 3-4, confirmed the Prime Minister's Office (PM Office) on Sunday. 

According to a tweet by the PM Office, PM Imran will lead a high-level delegation including cabinet members and senior officials on his visit to Malaysia. 

"During the visit, the two Prime Ministers would have tete-e-tete, followed by delegation-level talks. They will witness signing of important Agreement/MoUs, and have joint press stakeout.," read the tweet by the PM Office. 

During his visit, the PM Imran will also address the  Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) of Malaysia. 

In December last year, PM Imran abruptly cancelled his scheduled visit to Malaysia where he was expected to attend the Kuala Lumpur Summit. The summit was supposed to host important Muslim leaders from across the globe to talk about challenges facing the Muslim community. 

Diplomatic sources had informed Geo News that the prime minister cancelled his visit due to pressure from Saudi Arabia. 

The News reported Saudi Arabia had raised serious concerns over the Malaysian prime minister's statement where he had said the Muslim countries at Kuala Lumpur Summit would form a new platform to replace the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which "had failed to deliver the goods on issues faced by the Muslims across the world.”

Sources also said Saudi Arabia and its allies, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait and Bahrain were perturbed over the expected presence of Qatari emir, Turkish president and Iranian president at the summit and fear a new but parallel leadership forum is being developed to undermine Saudi Arabia and its allies.