China closest friend of Pakistan: Interior Minister

Islamabad: Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said that China was the closest friend of Pakistan.

“The Chinese ambassador had been in Quetta for the past few days and he is safe,” he said at a news conference here Thursday afternoon, a day after the blast in a Quetta luxury hotel where the Chinese envoy and his team had lodged in.

The minister rejected the speculations that the Chinese ambassador was at the hotel when the blast took place. “The diplomat was somewhere else,” he maintained.

The Minister said the blast at the Quetta’s Serena hotel was a suicide attack, which claimed five lives and injured about a dozen people.

“It was a suicide attack by the forces inimical to the country’s development and to disrupt peaceful environment in the Balochistan’s capital,” he said.

Ahmed said six of the injured had been discharged from hospital after treatment while two were in critical condition.

“A forensic investigation was being conducted into the attack and the terrorists had not yet been identified,” he added.

The minister said he had directed the Balochistan Chief Secretary to investigate the incident.  He said Balochistan and Gwadar were important for the country’s progress. Gwadar was in fact the future of Pakistan, he added.

Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon, the Pakistani foreign ministry announced that all the Chinese nationals in Pakistan were safe.

Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said the authorities were investigating the Quetta blast at a luxury hotel on Wednesday “from all angles.”

“All Chinese nationals are safe and the concerned authorities are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of Chinese diplomats and nationals,” he told a news briefing here.

He added: “Thorough investigations, from all angles, are being carried out in the Quetta blast and as I stated earlier, Pakistan will pursue the perpetrators of this heinous act and bring them to justice.”

Regarding the presence of Chinese Ambassador Non Rong at the hotel during the Quetta incident, he said: “The Chinese Ambassador at the time of incident was not present in the (Serena) hotel.”