By Liu Zhen
Premier Li Keqiang tells Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to bring to justice those responsible for a deadly attack on teachers at a Confucius Institute last month.
Sharif says security measures will be stepped up for Chinese nationals in the wake of the attack.
Pakistan has been urged to “ensure” further terrorist attacks against Chinese nationals do not happen after last month’s suicide bombing in Karachi.In a telephone call with Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Premier Li Keqiang said China had been shocked and outraged by the attack.Three Chinese teachers from a Confucius Institute and their local driver were killed in the attack by a female suicide bomber at a university campus in the southern city of Karachi on April 26. The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist militant group in nearby Balochistan province, claimed responsibility for the attack.
“I hope that the Pakistani side will bring the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible … and comprehensively strengthen security measures for Chinese institutions and personnel in Pakistan to ensure that similar tragedies will not be repeated,” Li said, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Shehbaz said his government would strengthen security measures for all Chinese institutions and personnel in Pakistan to ensure that similar incidents will not be repeated, and stressed that Pakistan strongly condemns terrorism, values the lives of Chinese personnel in Pakistan and “regards the Chinese that was killed and injured as our own compatriots without distinction”.
“We will do the utmost to investigate the incident, arrest the perpetrators and punish them according to the law,” he said.
On Monday, Pakistani media reported that a woman had been arrested on suspicion of plotting a suicide attack on a Chinese motorcade on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The reports said the woman had been found carrying detonators and explosives and raids were taking place to arrest other members of the network involved.
The CPEC, a series of US$65 billion infrastructure projects that aim to link China’s far western Xinjiang region to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan, have been a target for local militant groups such as the BLA.
In July 2021, a bus blast killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers near the construction site of the Dasu hydropower project. The Pakistani government said it was a suicide bombing by Islamist militants.
Chinese instructors at Pakistani Confucius Institutes have left the country since the attack, Nassir Uddin, the director of the department at the University of Karachi, told the television station Geo News on Sunday.Uddin insisted that the institute would stay open, adding that Pakistani teachers are being asked to help teach Mandarin.In Monday’s phone call, the first between Li and Sharif since the latter took office last month, the premier said China has always prioritised its relations with Pakistan and would firmly support the Pakistani side in defending national sovereignty and security, developing its economy, improving people’s livelihoods and maintaining financial stability.
“The Chinese side is willing to strengthen strategic communication with the Pakistani side and promote cooperation on major projects such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,” he said.
Sharif said the friendship between the two countries was deep-rooted and the level of cooperation had reached “an unprecedented level”.
“Pakistan is willing to work with China to accelerate the construction of the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, deepen cooperation in key projects and special economic zones, and people-to-people exchanges for the betterment of the two peoples,” he added.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3177970/beijing-urges-pakistan-stop-terror-attacks-chinese-nationals
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