The announcement came a day after Foreign Minister Qureshi’s visit to the United States got postponed where he was scheduled to attend a meeting of the Group of 77, planned to start from January 14 in New York.

However, the meeting of G-77 under chairmanship of Pakistan has now been postponed due to rising cases of Omicron variant of the Covid-19 in New York and other cities including Washington, where Qureshi was also planning to visit for holding meetings with senior US officials, diplomatic sources said.

About Qureshi’s visit to the two European countries, the Foreign Office said that during the first leg of the visit, the Foreign Minister will visit Bucharest at the invitation of Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu from 9-10 January 2022.

While in Romania, it added the Foreign Minister will hold meetings with his Romanian counterpart and other dignitaries. The Foreign Minister will subsequently visit Spain on the invitation of Foreign Minister José Manuel AlbaresBueno from January 10-12, 2022.

Besides meeting with his Spanish counterpart, Qureshi will hold meetings with other ministers and members of the Spanish Parliament.

This article was first published in Business Recorder on Jan 8, 2022.