For the better part of this year, Pakistan has been playing a dual game, facilitating backchannel talks between the warring US and Iran while strengthening defence ties with Tehran’s Gulf rival, Riyadh. But last week’s fighting between Saudi forces and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels has made it difficult for Islamabad to hold both fronts together.
But in its latest outreach, Sharif condemned what he described as Houthi attacks on Saudi civilian and economic infrastructure.
In a phone call to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, reiterated Islamabad’s “strongest condemnation” of the Yemeni rebels’ attack on the Kingdom after the country walked back on its earlier tough stance on military action against the Houthis. Sharif expressed “complete solidarity” with Saudi Arabia and warned that the strikes threaten regional security and global energy supplies, Pakistan’s Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. Saudi authorities said a projectile fired by the Houthis injured two people and damaged several buildings, including a mosque, as part of a broader Houthi campaign against Saudi Arabia that has included missile and drone strikes on cities and energy facilities. But Pakistan is believed to have angered the signatories after Islamabad said last week the Makka pact did not automatically mean Pakistani military action against the Houthis. He said the strikes could further disrupt the global economy and energy supplies. “While expressing complete solidarity with the Saudi leadership as well as the brotherly people of Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister stated that the recent Houthi actions threatened regional peace and security and could further disrupt the global economy and energy supplies,” the Pakistan PMO statement said. Sharif also said he, Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar would continue efforts to reduce tensions and restore peace in the Middle East. Pakistani soldiers are deployed near the Saudi border with Yemen, increasing their direct exposure, according to a Reuters report.
Pakistani officials worry the Houthi threat is more likely to draw Islamabad into a war than Iranian missile strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure were earlier this year.
