ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office said on Thursday that 186 Pakistanis had left the port of Aden on board a Chinese Navy ship for Djibouti and a special PIA flight left for Djibouti late in the night to bring them to Pakistan.

Pakistan was also helping China with evacuation of its citizens from Yemen, FO spokesperson Tasneem Aslam said at the weekly media briefing.

A Pakistan Navy ship has reached Mokallah port, but the evacuation was delayed because of skirmishes which erupted around the port city following Wednesday night’s jailbreak by Al Qaeda in which some 300 inmates were freed.

Also read: 'Bring back our people in Yemen'

Around 175 Pakistanis are awaiting evacuation from Mokallah.

Another group of 145 Pakistanis is in Sanaa. They are unwilling to move to other cities for evacuation. A special flight is being planned to airlift them from Sanaa.

“The possibility of flight by a small aircraft (to Sanaa) exists and is being pursued for which required clearances are also being obtained from Yemen authorities,” Ms Aslam said.

She rejected as false the reports that some Pakistanis had been killed by Houthi rebels. “All Pakistanis are safe.”

The spokesperson said coordination with Iran on the Yemen crisis was not required. She was responding to a query why contacts regarding the Yemen crisis were mostly with Saudi Arabia and not with Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is expected to visit Islamabad next week (April 8). The agenda of the trip, sources say, would be dominated by the situation in Yemen.

Tehran has already conveyed through Pakistani ambassador in Iran Noor Jademani its interest for a dialogue with Islamabad.

There is one view that crisis in Yemen is a struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for influence in the region. Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who first resigned as Yemeni

president but retracted after fleeing from Sanaa, is being backed by Saudi Arabia and its allies, while Houthi rebels are said to be enjoying Iranian support.

Responding to another question, Ms Aslam said that Pakistan did not see Iran involved in Yemen.

“How Iran does come into it? Is this your interpretation of the situation between Saudi Arabia and Iran? This is not our assessment,” she said.

Explaining Islamabad’s consultations with Riyadh, the spokesperson said it was because Saudi Arabia contacted Pakistan and that it (Saudi Arabia) initiated military action in Yemen at the request of that country’s ‘legitimate government’.

The government had last week decided to reach out to “leadership of brotherly Muslim countries” for what it said “facilitating early resolution of the crisis and promoting peace and unity of the Muslim Ummah”.

Ms Aslam insisted that there was no division within the country on protecting Saudi Arabia or the Holy Mosques.

“First, protecting the holy places is every Muslim’s responsibility. I do not think that any political party has said that protecting Saudi Arabia or the holy places is not our responsibility,” she said.

Commenting on Iran’s nuclear talks with P5+1 in Switzerland’s city of Lausanne, the spokesperson said: “It is our earnest hope that this dialogue would be concluded successfully. The intensive discussions that are taking place right now give us hope that there would be some positive outcome.”

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2015

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