Talking to Arab News on Friday, Jahangir Badr, secretary-general of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and member of the Senate, said his country was not bothered by India coming closer to Saudi Arabia. “It’s a bilateral relation between Saudi Arabia and another country. Where do we figure?” he said.

About possible Saudi mediation between Pakistan and India, Badr, a former Pakistani federal minister, called for India to bring something concrete. “It would be premature to comment on something which is being discussed only on the basis of a statement made by an Indian minister,” he said, referring to the ongoing debate over what Shashi Tharoor, India’s minister of state for foreign affairs, recently said in Riyadh when he called for the Kingdom to play the role of “interlocutor” in Pakistan-India talks.

Badr said he came to the Kingdom to perform Umrah and did not meet any Saudi official. He refused to comment on the planned visit of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to Saudi Arabia.

Qureshi told reporters in the Pakistani city of Multan last week that he has been invited by his Saudi counterpart, Prince Saud Al-Faisal.

Meanwhile, Ehsanul Haq, convener of the Pakistan Repatriation Council (PRC), presented a memorandum to Badr, urging him to reactivate the Rabita Trust formed by the Muslim World League for the repatriation and settlement in Pakistan of a quarter million Pakistanis languishing in Bangladeshi camps for the last four decades.

Riaz Bukhari, the local PPP leader, reminded Badr that it was PPP founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who, after the demise of East Pakistan, had brought 170,000 stranded Pakistanis, popularly known as Biharis, to Pakistan.

But with his death their fate has been sealed. Since the PPP is once again in power, PRC expects the issue of stranded Pakistanis to be resolved once and for all, Bukhari said. Badr promised to do the needful and also write to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and update the PRC on the present status.

Badr also inaugurated an arts and cultural exhibition at the Pakistan International School (English Section) in the presence of Pakistan’s Ambassador Umar Khan Alisherzai and Consul General Abdul Salik Khan.

The exhibition was held to commemorate Pakistan National Day, which falls on March 23. It was widely attended by the local Pakistani community and dignitaries, including Turkish, Japanese and Italian diplomats. The exhibition was followed by a cultural show at night.