Embassy / Ambassador / Ambassador’s Interviews & Speeches / Interview of Ambassador Shafqat Ali Khan with TASS news agency on 27 April 2020

Interview of Ambassador Shafqat Ali Khan with TASS news agency on 27 April 2020


According to the Pakistani Ambassador, medics in his country are still short of protective gear, despite the government’s efforts to resolve this problem

MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Pakistan’s Disaster Management Authority is looking at purchasing lung ventilators from Russian companies amid the novel coronavirus spread, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Russia Shafqat Ali Khan told TASS on Monday.

He said that the country is facing the problem of ventilators shortages and is trying to find a way out of this situation. "But one challenge which still remains is ventilators, just like everywhere else in the world. It is a challenge, which we are trying to deal with," he said. "Our Disaster Management authorities have started scouting the Russian companies for the purchases of ventilators. They are working in terms of getting technical specs, the pricing quotations and everything."

According to the Pakistani diplomat, the current pandemic has become a serious challenge for the country’s healthcare system. Thus, in his words, medics in Pakistan are still short of protective gear, despite the government’s efforts to resolve this problem. Nevertheless, the country has managed to resolve the problem of masks and is now producing enough of them. "The hospitals are also evolving their standard operating procedures and protocols," he noted.

"But this is second-line issues: masks, ventilators and hospitalization. The first line issue is public health and public awareness, mass awareness," he stressed, adding that much depends on how people observe sanitary recommendations, the thing Pakistani authorities are focusing on.



In his words, Islamabad is also looking forward to extending people-to-people contacts between the two nations

MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Pakistan is interested in increasing the volume of investment from Russia, the country’s ambassador to Russia Shafqat Ali Khan told TASS on Monday. 
In his opinion, bilateral trade and the economic sector in bilateral relations in general was "growing but we are not satisfied, it has to grow much more."

"There was an old legal dispute on our Soviet debt which was part of a litigation in Pakistan, which prevented Russian investments in Pakistan. Last year we resolved that problem. So that problem was taken care off. So now we are ready to take off in the commercial and investment field," he said.

"We think we can invest much more in one of our top priorities in our foreign policy - strong relations with Russia," he continued. "And we are sure that much more can be achieved, and there are many opportunities for win-win cooperation of Pakistan and Russia in these strong relationship."

In his words, Islamabad is also looking forward to extending people-to-people contacts between the two nations. 
"Particularly we want to benefit from the excellent higher education opportunities available in Russian Federation for Pakistani students," he said. "We want more and more Pakistani students to receive higher education in Russia."

The ambassador stressed that the development of relations with Moscow remains among Pakistan’s foreign policy priorities. In his opinion, "Pakistan - Russia relationships are at the historically the strongest point" at the moment. 
"Fundamentally I would not be overstating we don’t have big problems in our relations maybe some minor commercial dispute here or some issue there. It is a very friendly and deep cooperative relationship," he said.

Khan said that this year, the speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly was scheduled to visit Russia on the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Speaker of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. However, the visit did not take place due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.