Air strikes: Pak expresses reservation about OIC’s invitation to India

Islamabad: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Tuesday that he has spoken to his UAE counterpart and “expressed reservations” about invitation to India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to attend the OIC meeting scheduled later this week.
In a strategically significant development, India has been invited to the inaugural plenary of the foreign ministers’ conclave of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a powerful grouping of Muslim majority nations, in Abu Dhabi from March 1 to 2. Swaraj will attend the meeting as the ‘guest of honour’.
Addressing a press conference here after a special meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) in the wake of India’s air strikes inside Pakistan early Tuesday, Qureshi said the situation has changed now.
“Aggression has been done against a founding member of the OIC,” he said, referring to the Indian attack that destroyed Jaish-e-Mohammed’s biggest training camp in Balakot in Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a “very large number” of militants, trainers and commanders.
Describing the situation following the Indian air strikes as “serious”, Qureshi said that Prime Minister Imran Khan also had telephonic conversations with UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as well as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman over the development.