Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on Friday agreed to solidify efforts in defence collaboration with the army chief reaffirming the army’s continued support towards capacity building of Royal Saudi Land Forces. The understanding came during a meeting between Army Chief General Asim Munir and the kingdom’s Assistant Minister of Defence Major General Talal Bin Abdullah Al-Otaibi in Rawalpindi. The visitor also participated in the 5th Meeting of Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Defence Collaboration, where the two sides reiterated their resolve to solidify the efforts in defence collaboration with a “focused approach to target specific capabilities in land, air and sea domains”.
It is a matter of satisfaction that after years of hiatus, Pakistan is demonstrating intensified interest in boosting multi-faceted cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the Saudi leadership is also more than willing to strengthen and diversify strategic partnership with Pakistan. The decision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to personally monitor progress on proposals aimed at attracting Saudi investment in different sectors of Pakistan’s economy. We have been emphasizing in these columns time and again that apart from diversifying ties in the realm of economy, there are bright prospects for expanding defence and security cooperation with the Kingdom as it is mutually beneficial for the two countries.
No doubt, there is already cooperation in this sector but this mainly limited to training and advisory support whereas the two countries can benefit immensely by initiating joint projects in defence production to lessen their independence on unreliable sources. We hope relevant institutions would prepare a comprehensive strategy for the purpose as Pakistan has a demonstrable capability for production of quality defence hardware and the KSA has the resources to fund joint projects.
