Riyadh, February 28: Saudi Arabia can be a “valuable interlocutor” between India and Pakistan, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said on Sunday and subsequently clarified that he did not mean that Riyadh should be a mediator.
“We feel that Saudi Arabia of course has a long and close relationship with Pakistan but that makes Saudi Arabia even a more valuable interlocutor for us,” Tharoor, who is accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a three-day visit to the kingdom, said.
“When we tell them about our experience, Saudi Arabia listens as somebody who is not in anyway an enemy of Pakistan but rather is a friend of Pakistan and therefore I am sure will listen with sympathy and concern to a matter of this nature,” he said when asked what kind of cooperation did he expect from Riyadh considering its close relations with Islamabad.
Shortly after making the remarks, the minister who earlier also hit headlines for his controversial statements on social networking site Twitter on the government’s austerity measures and immigration policy — retracted them.
“No chance of my saying Saudi Arabia should be a mediator… Never said that or anything like it,” Tharoor said.
-PTI