Tue 12 May 2020:
Iran forced about 5,000 Pakistani nationals over the border into Balochistan, despite a plea by Islamabad to wait until quarantine facilities were ready to accommodate them, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Monday.
“I spoke with the Iranian foreign minister and requested time to make arrangements (for the pilgrims) but they couldn’t do it due to economic sanctions,” Qureshi said during a National Assembly session, the first convened in two months. He added that Pakistan had been left with no option but to admit its nationals.
Iran, a popular destination for Shiite pilgrims, is one of the countries worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Islamabad has blamed Iranian authorities for accelerating the spread of the virus by sending Pakistani pilgrims home without screening them for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
In late March, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s special assistant on public health, Dr. Zafar Mirza, said: “Eighty percent of the COVID-19-confirmed patients in Pakistan originated from Iran, which lacked the capacity to deal with an international public-health emergency.”
During Monday’s parliamentary session, which was convened to discuss the latest coronavirus developments, opposition parties argued that the blame for the spread of the virus rests with Pakistan’s own government.
There were nearly 31,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in Pakistan as of Monday, and 667 deaths linked to COVID-19. The country, which has a population of 210 million, has conducted about 295,000 tests, including about 11,400 in the past 24 hours.
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