Pak Senate Chairman cancels UAE trip over highest civilian honour to PM Modi

Pakistan Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani has decided to cancel his pre-scheduled visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after the gulf country honoured Prime Minister Narendra Modi with "Order of Zayed" during his visit.

According to Geo News, Sanjrani was scheduled to visit the UAE, along with his parliamentary delegation, from August 25 to August 28 on the invitation of the UAE government. During the visit, the delegation was slated to hold meetings with the UAE parliamentarians and government officials.

Sources told The Express Tribune that Sanjrani cancelled the visit as he felt that it would "hurt the feelings of the Kashmiri people".

Pakistan has been rattled by the Indian government's move to abrogate Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir and found itself completely isolated on the matter. The country has been snubbed on all fronts, noticeably, by the SAARC countries, most of which have made it clear that the Kashmir issue is India's internal matter.

A similar narrative had played in the aftermath of the airstrikes conducted by the Indian Air Force at Balakot, when Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had cancelled a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) hosted by the UAE as the group did not pay heed to Islamabad's demand of rescinding the invitation to India's former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.