Pakistan on Tuesday requested Saudi Arabia to take steps to facilitate the return of its workers who have been stuck in the country due to Covid-19 restrictions imposed by Riyadh, reported Express Tribune.
The issue was flagged both by Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in their separate meetings with visiting Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.
The Saudi top diplomat visited Pakistan as a follow-up of the visit undertaken by PM Imran to Riyadh in May this year
Apart from other issues, one of the agenda items of the discussions during the Saudi foreign minister’s interaction with the Pakistani leadership was to seek the early return of Pakistani workers to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is home to almost 2 million Pakistanis working in different fields. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic many Pakistanis returned to the country but since then they are unable to go back to the kingdom due to travel restrictions.
FM Qureshi told a joint news conference with his Saudi counterpart that there were about 400,000 Pakistanis who had been waiting for the travel restrictions to be eased so that they could resume their work in the kingdom.
