Crown Prince Bin Salman snubbed Imran Khan, ordered his private jet to return

A Pakistani magazine has reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was alienated with some aspect of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s activities on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last month, the he instructed his private jet to leave the Pakistan envoys as an upshot.

Ahead of attending the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had first paid a visit to Saudi Arabia.

While leaving of the US from Jeddah, the Crown Prince stopped Imran Khan from travelling in a commercial flight and asked him to fly on his private jet as he didn’t want his guest to travel in a commercial flight, as per the Pakistan media reports.

While, Imran Khan was returning to Pakistan from the US on 28th September, it was reported that the Saudi plain suffered a technical glitch following which Imran Khan and his envoys had to take a commercial flight back to Pakistan.

But the Friday Times magazine has refuted this report, and in an article it said: “The Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, was so alienated by some dimensions of the Pakistani Prime Minister's diplomacy in New York - he couldn't have been happy at the prospect of Imran Khan, (Turkish President) Recep Tayyip Erdogan and (Malaysian Prime Minister) Mahathir Mohammad planning to jointly represent the Islamic bloc, nor with Pakistan's interlocution with Iran without his explicit approval...he visibly snubbed Imran by ordering his private jet to disembowel the Pakistani delegation..."

On the sidelines of the UNGA, Imran Khan had met Mr Erdogan and Mr Mahathir, where the leaders decided to lunch and spoke on various issues like Islamophobia.

During the UNGA, Imran Khan had also announced that he was working to mediate with Iran to cool the tensions in the Gulf at the request of US Presiden Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince.

Reacting to this, a Pakistani government spokesperson down played the reports on Sunday.

"This is a cooked up story. The leaders of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have good relations. The conclusion of Khan's meeting with the Turkish and Malay leaders is pure fiction. The report is aimed at political vendetta. We dismiss this report," the spokesman added.