Beijing seeks enhanced security for its workers

Nisar assures Chinese envoy Pakistan will do its best to meet this demand

ISLAMABAD: China has called for provision of better security to its workers working on a multibillion-dollar roads and rail network that will connect its impoverished southern region to the Arabian Sea through Gwadar port.

Officials said that the demand was made by China’s Ambassador to Pakistan Sun Weidong, who called on Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Wednesday.



According to an official statement issued after the meeting, the interior minister assured the Chinese ambassador that Pakistan would continue making every possible effort to ensure foolproof security of Chinese workers.

“A special force to this effect is being raised on a fast track basis,” Nisar said.

He suggested the two countries work out a comprehensive and integrated mechanism and evolve standing operating procedures (SOPs) for ensuring security of the Chinese nationals.

The interior minister said those who were opposing the project could not see this region, especially Pakistan, marching towards a new era of socio-economic prosperity.

“[They] are also reluctant to acknowledge new realities where China has much larger role to play in the region being a major power and stakeholder of peace, prosperity and development of the region and an ally and time-tested friend of Pakistan,” Nisar said.

The Chinese envoy thanked Pakistan for rescuing a Chinese tourist who had been abducted in May last year. The unidentified Chinese man was kidnapped from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Daraban area.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2015.