'Saudi threatened to send back Pakistanis, reemploy Bangladeshis instead'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has alleged that Pakistan skipped Kuala Lumpur summit as Saudi Arabia threatened to recruit Bangladeshi people after sending back Pakistanis.

Erdogan made the allegation while speaking to Turkish media representatives, says Dawn quoting a report of Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah published on Friday.

“There are four million Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia. They [threaten by saying that they] would send [Pakistanis] back and re-employ Bangladeshis instead,” Erdogan was quoted as saying.

He added that the kingdom has also threatened to withdraw money it had deposited in the State Bank of Pakistan.

The Turkish president said that it was not the first time that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had put pressure on a country for doing or not doing certain things.

According to Erdogan, Pakistan had to comply with the Saudi wishes "due to its economic difficulties".

While not directly addressing the Turkish president's statement, the Foreign Office of Pakistan said that Pakistan did not participate in the Kuala Lumpur summit because "time and efforts were needed to address the concerns of major Muslim countries regarding possible division in the Ummah".

"Pakistan will continue to work for the unity and solidarity of the Ummah, which is indispensable for effectively addressing the challenges faced by the Muslim world," the FO spokesperson of Pakistan said in a brief statement.

The Kuala Lumpur Summit was held in Malaysia recently to address issues such as Islamophobia and poverty with the participation of at least 250 foreign representatives from 52 countries and 150 Malaysian delegates.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey joined the summit, among others, with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in the chair

But the summit signposted a deepening divide in the Muslim world as there was notable absences of the leaders of Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The meeting was shunned by Saudi Arabia and criticised for allegedly undermining the bigger Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Some analysts also suspected that Saudi Arabia's reluctance to attend stemmed from fear of being diplomatically isolated by regional rivals Iran, Qatar and Turkey, all of whom were attending the summit.

Saudi state news agency SPA also reported that on a call with Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad, Saudi King Salman reaffirmed that such issues should be discussed through the OIC.