Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are at the end of the road of their decade-long friendship after Saudi said it will be ending loans and oil supply to Pakistan. The latter was also made to pay back $1 billion to Saudi Arabia. It was part of a $6.2 billion package announced by Saudi Arabia in November 2018, which included a total of $3 billion in loans and an oil credit facility that amounted to $3.2 billion.
The move was made after Pakistan criticised that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) wasn’t doing much on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi indicated that Pakistan might break off from OIC if a session to exclusively discuss Kashmir wasn’t convened. “If you cannot convene it, then I'll be compelled to ask Prime Minister Imran Khan to call a meeting of the Islamic countries that are ready to stand with us on the issue of Kashmir and support the oppressed Kashmiris,” he was quoted as saying in an ANI report.
“I am once again respectfully telling OIC that a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers is our expectation,” he further stated.
After Pakistan failed to gather support from the OIC members on Kashmir, Imran Khan had said In May, “The reason is that we have no voice and there is a total division amongst. We cannot even come together as a whole on the OIC meeting on Kashmir”.
Every since Article 370 was abrogated in August last year, Pakistan has been making attempts to push its narrative and raise the issue of rising Islamophobia in India in OIC’s agenda. But, the Maldives, an ally of India, thwarted the move and said, “Isolated statements by motivated people and disinformation campaigns on social media should not be construed as representative of the feelings of 1.3 billion”.
Pakistan’s stance is backed by Turkey which wants to challenge Saudi Arabia’s leadership in the Islamic world. Saudi, however, has been with New Delhi on its domestic matter. Other Asian nations with Muslim majority including Indonesia too, are backing India on this.
