ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister of Pakistan and Malaysia addressed a joint press conference today (Friday) here at PM House.
Addressing a joint press conference with Prime Minister Imran Khan, his Malaysian counterpart said, “There are fear and hatred towards Muslims in European countries and the example of that is the mosques attack in Christchurch.”
“We need to work on finding other ways to curb Islamophobia, I think Pakistan and Malaysia understand this issue of Islamophobia. There are other ways to fight back rather than killing each other. We can work on various other things to curb extremism and hatred towards Muslims,” Mahathir Mohamad added.
Regarding his talks with the Pakistani premier, He said, “We discussed regional issues and challenges faced by the world. We need to increase the trade between the two nations that can be beneficial for us. Today, everyone is focusing to enhance their economy.”
“We can also exchange our experiences and information to address the corruption-related issues,” Mahathir added.
On the other hand, PM Imran appreciated the Malaysian premier’s efforts and timely response against Islamophobia right after the Christchurch incident, in which several Muslims were killed.
“We admire your leadership qualities and your return to office was a great comeback,” PM Imran said.
“Corruption is a menace the halts human development and we also admire your steps taken for curbing corruption,” he added.
Responding to a question, PM Imran said, “In today’s world there are only Muslim leaders who stand out and who actually transformed the society. [One is the] Malaysian prime minister and we watched as Malaysia was transformed. The other was Turkey, under Erdogan. We saw the change in Turkey and the GDP going up.”
In response to another question, PM Imran said, “Pakistan wants to learn from Malaysia’s experiences in the field of tourism in particular.”
