Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan Monday received a telephone call from Saudi Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman wherein two leaders discussed the bilateral ties.

The crown prince inquired about the prime minister’s health and wished him a speedy recovery. The prime minister also inquired about well-being of the crown prince since he had recently undergone a surgical procedure.

Prime Minister Imran Khan lauded the transformational ‘Green Saudi Initiative’ and the ‘Green Middle East Initiative’ recently announced by the crown prince. He also highlighted Pakistan’s ’10 billion Tree Tsunami’ initiative, which was underway in the whole country, and its potential dividends to restore ecosystem and combat climate change. While highlighting the complementarities between both countries’ environmental initiatives, the prime minister hoped for enhanced bilateral cooperation and knowledge sharing in this field.

Prime Minister Imran Khan conveyed warm wishes for the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques His Majesty King Salman bin Abdul Aziz. The prime minister reaffirmed Pakistan’s desire to further strengthen amiable and fraternal ties with Saudi Arabia and also reiterated Pakistan’s support for the Kingdom’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The prime minister and the crown prince agreed to work together to further augment bilateral ties in all spheres. The crown prince invited the prime minister to undertake a visit to Saudi Arabia in the near future. The prime minister graciously accepted the invitation. Both the leaders reaffirmed the resolve to further strengthening the strong, longstanding Pakistan-Saudi Arabia fraternal ties.

Separately, Prime Minister Imran Khan appreciated Saudi Arabia’s environment friendly initiative of planting 50 billion trees in the region, and offered sharing Pakistan’s experiences and lessons learnt from an identical programme. “The two initiatives, which inter alia include plantation of 10 billion trees in the Kingdom and its further upscaling to 50 billion in the region as part of the Green Middle East Initiative; expansion of protected areas to more than 30 percent; protection of marine and coastal environments; and generation of 50 percent of the Kingdom’s energy from renewables by 2030, are highly commendable,” the prime minister said in a letter to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman. “Have offered our support on these as there are many complementarities with our “Clean & Green Pakistan” & “10 Billion-Tree Tsunami,” he said on Twitter while sharing the copy of letter written to the Saudi crown prince.

The prime minister said the vision of crown prince is closely aligned with his government’s “Clean and Green Pakistan” initiative, which is investing in nature-based solutions to address climate change impacts in the country. Imran Khan told the Saudi crown prince that after successfully planting 1 billion trees from 2014 to 2018, his government’s ’10 Billion Tree Tsunami’ initiative is well underway across the whole country. “We are also expanding our protected areas-over 15 percent land and 10 percent marine area-by 2023,” he remarked.

The prime minister said his government’s initiatives have demonstrated that planting trees not only protected nature and restores ecosystem to fight climate change, it also expanded eco-tourism and created thousands of green jobs for the youth as well as local communities. “We are also committed to shifting our energy mix towards a clean and low carbon trajectory. Like the Kingdom’s vision, we are targeting 60 percent of our energy to be clean energy by 2030, which will require a major expansion of solar, wind and hydro power generation capacity in the country,” he said.

Imran Khan said Pakistan cherishes its cordial and brotherly relations with the Kingdom and extended its support for Saudi Arab’s ‘Green’ initiative. He said as the two countries maintain close cooperation on climate change issues at all multilateral forums, a meaningful and structured bilateral engagement can help advance a shared vision and create mutual, beneficial opportunities for partnership.

He viewed that the challenge of climate change called for greater international collaboration and a shared aspiration for sustainable development. “The world has no choice but to tread this green pathway and define a new development paradigm for the 21st century,” he stated and appreciated the Saudi leadership’s efforts towards the transition.