ISLAMABAD — China’s Premier Li Qiang on Monday inaugurated a Beijing-funded airport built in restive southwestern Pakistan a week after militants killed two Chinese workers, as he arrived for a regional security meeting in Islamabad.
Li will be the most prominent leader at the two-day meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization starting Tuesday to discuss how to boost security and economic ties between the member states. It was founded by Russia and China to counter Western alliances.
Hours after arriving in Islamabad, Li and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at a televised ceremony virtually inaugurated a Chinese-funded international airport in Gwadar, in the southwestern province of Balochistan. It’s part of a massive investment by Beijing that links a deep sea port and airport on the Arabian Sea by road with China.
Separatists in Balochistan, who accuse the Chinese and others of economic exploitation, are opposed to the project. Last week, two Chinese workers were killed and another was wounded when a suicide bomber dispatched by separatists rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into their convoy outside the country’s largest airport in Karachi.
Eight Pakistani security officials were also wounded in the Oct. 6 attack, which targeted the thousands of Chinese working in Pakistan on projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The two leaders also witnessed the signing of agreements to boost economic and trade ties. Li is the first Chinese premier to visit Pakistan in more than a decade, according to Information Minister Attaullah Tarar.
Li vowed to “continue to working hand-in-hand” with Pakistan on joint economic projects, like the Gwadar airport, which he said was built and modernized in five years in the deserts of Balochistan.
“This gift from our brother from China is yet another feather in the cap of the CPEC,” Sharif said. He assured Li that he would work closely with him to ensure the safety of Chinese workers in Pakistan.
The airport in Gwadar is one of the biggest in Pakistan, according to civil aviation officials.
Apart from the airport and Gwadar deep see port, one of the main components of the $75-billion CPEC is a 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) road linking China to Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, a highway running directly through Balochistan.
The airport’s opening came hours after Tarar said a high-level investigation into the killings of the Chinese workers in Karachi was still underway. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said Monday that Chinese investigators were sent to Pakistan and had met with authorities.
The investigators asked Pakistan to conduct thorough investigations, bring all perpetrators to justice, and step up security measures to ensure the safety and security of Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in Pakistan, the ministry said.
Gunmen last week also killed 21 coal miners in the the same province, but the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army denied its involvement. Authorities said they were still trying to determine who was behind the assault.
On Monday, at least four police officers and five insurgents were killed in an attack on a police station in the district of Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said. No one has claimed responsibility but the suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, who often target security forces across the country.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the SCO meeting will also be attended by representatives of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It said Iran’s vice president and the Indian foreign minister would also attend.
Pakistan has increased security in the capital by deploying troops and banning rallies.
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Associated Press writers Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, and and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.