Alwaght- Pakistan's Senate has summoned the country’s defense minister Khurram Dastgir after army’s announcement of sending troops to Saudi Arabia that is involved in a three-year aggression against neighboring Yemen.
The Pakistani army says that the troops to be deployed, or the ones already there, will not be stationed outside Saudi Arabia.
The army said that the military contingent is part of the ongoing Pakistan-Saudi bilateral cooperation, under which a number of Pakistani troops are already stationed in Saudi Arabia for advisory roles.
However, the number of troops being deployed at present has not been disclosed.
The Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited Riyadh at the start of this month where he met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Saudi Commander of Ground Forces Lieutenant General Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Abdulaziz. No further details were released about discussion during the meetings.
In a bid to assuage regional countries the Pakistan Army issued a statement saying it maintains bilateral security cooperation with many other Persian Gulf Cooperation Council and regional countries. The statement was perceived to be assurance to Iran and Turkey owing to the tensions between Tehran and Riyadh and Turkey's siding with Qatar in its conflict with Saudi-led Arab regimes.
Saudi Arabia launched a brutal aggression against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah movement which administer the capital Sana'a and several provinces.
Nearly 14,000 Yemenis, mostly women, children and the elderly, have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against the impoverished state. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war. The Saudi-led war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic and famine across Yemen.
