Huthi militia attack: PM expresses solidarity with UAE crown prince

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday expressed solidarity with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Mohamed Bin Zayed over a Huthi militia attack on civil facilities and condemned the attack.

The PM had a telephonic talk with the crown prince and condemned the terrorist attack by the Huthi militia on civil facilities in Abu Dhabi on January 17. He offered condolences to the families of all the victims and prayed for speedy recovery of the injured. He expressed solidarity with the leadership, government and people of the United Arab Emirates. He underlined that such attacks cannot be justified and stressed immediate cessation of these attacks, which continue to pose grave threat to regional peace and security.

The crown prince thanked the prime minister for his support and offered condolence on the demise of a Pakistani national in the tragic incident.

Meanwhile, the prime minister said the government is focusing on the development of big cities as they are the real engines of growth for the national economy. He said this while chairing a meeting on the Plan for Big Cities here.

“Due to rural to urban areas migration, the cities are facing multiple challenges including housing, job opportunities and civic amenities. It is necessary that work on special development packages for the big cities must be accelerated,” he said and directed the authorities concerned to take all possible measures to clear hiccups in the way of completion of various development schemes in big cities on a priority basis to provide maximum relief to the residents.

The prime minister directed the authorities to work in close coordination and launch a concerted campaign for the uplift and development of big cities like Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala.

The meeting was attended by Information Minister Ch Fawad Hussain, Industries Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, and Planning Minister Asad Umar. Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood, Governor Punjab Ch Muhammad Sarwar and Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar joined the meeting via video link.

Meanwhile, the premier said the government has devised a comprehensive mechanism for distribution of urea fertilizer with the help of district administrations that will ensure availability of urea to farmers at the control rate. The government, he noted, is taking strict anti-smuggling and anti-hoarding measures to curb illicit profiteering from urea distribution across the country while the government has achieved record production of urea in its three year tenure, which surpassed 6.1 million tons: Prior to 2018, it never crossed 5.5 million tons. “Increased indigenous production has led to urea availability to farmers at a 5-time cheaper rate as compared to prices in the international market,” he said.

The meeting was briefed that the urea production in the three-year tenure of the government surpassed 6.1 million tons, 440,000 bags per day, which prior to 2018 never crossed 5.5 million tons, 370,000 bags per day. This was achieved due to the government’s policies, including unhindered supply of gas to urea plants. In addition to that, due to the prime minister’s vision to prioritize food security, a robust system to monitor fertilizer supply and demand with constant monitoring has been put in place that has led to resolution of issues on a daily basis. Except Sindh, with a production of 90% and verification of 23%, all the other provinces have been ensuring verification on PITB Portal.

The meeting was attended by Federal Ministers Shaukat Fayyaz Tarin, Ch Fawad Hussain, Hammad Azhar, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiyar, Syed Fakhar-e-Imam, Minister for State Farrukh Habib, SAPM Dr Shehbaz Gill, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema and stakeholders from fertilizer industry.