President meets envoys, urges improvement in bilateral ties

ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain on Friday met the envoys of different countries separately and urged them to increase bilateral cooperation.

Outgoing Ambassador of Norway in Pakistan Tore Nedrebo called on the president at Aiwan-e-Sadr. During the meeting, the president lauded the services of the ambassador to strengthen bilateral relations between Pakistan and Norway and said that there exists a huge potential for bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, education and others. He said that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has reduced the distances among different regions and Norway could also take advantage of the initiative.

The president hoped that the successor of the outgoing envoy would also put in similar efforts to enhance bilateral trade and urged the Norwegian investors to invest in Pakistan.

President Mamnoon apprised the envoy that extremism and terrorism had inflicted huge loss to Pakistan, but the Pakistani nation had eliminated the menace by rendering sacrifices to help establish peace and stability in the region as well as the whole world.

The president also separately met the ambassadors-designate of Pakistan to Lebanon and New Zealand and directed them to strive for strengthening the bilateral ties with the respective countries. He told Pakistan’s envoy-designate to Lebanon that Pakistan greatly valued its ties with Lebanon for it is an important Islamic country, besides having traditional ties with it.

The president told Pakistan’s envoy-designate to New Zealand that the enhancement of cooperation between Pakistan and New Zealand was important and urged the envoy to strive for promoting bilateral ties in trade and other sectors.

He urged the envoy to focus on sending Pakistani students to New Zealand so that they could avail great educational facilities.