Dar’s visit to deepen strategic ties with Pakistan: Beijing

ISLAMABAD: China has maintained that the visit of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar would deepen its all-weather strategic cooperative partnership with Pakistan and lead to upgradation of CPEC besides other subjects.

Senator Dar, who reached Beijing after midnight Sunday, was warmly received by the Chinese leadership.

He will hold the fifth round of China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue with the host counterpart and he is expected to meet the Chinese leaders, senior ministers and leading corporate executives on its sidelines.

Dar is on his first foreign bilateral visit and preceded by the weeklong visit of Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives and Inter-provincial Coordination.

It is believed that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif will also visit China early next month, which will also carry significant importance in the wake of international and regional situation.

Dar has been invited by the Member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Peoples Congress (CPC) Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi.

It’s also an important part of the institutionalized interactions between the two foreign ministers.

Commenting on the current relations with Pakistan and China’s expectation from the visit, a Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson said, “China would like to work with Pakistan to take this visit as an opportunity to deliver on the important common understandings between the leaders, carry forward the traditional friendship, step up strategic communication and coordination, deepen practical cooperation in various areas, upgrade CPEC, deepen China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership, and accelerate the building of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era. China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners and ironclad friends.”

In recent years, the two countries have maintained close high-level exchanges and interactions at all levels, jointly responded to the evolving international and regional landscape, deepened mutually beneficial cooperation and further strengthened the friendship between the two countries.