Saudis Defer $6B In Pakistani Oil Payments: CBS News

CBS) Written by CBS News' Farhan Bokhari, reporting from Islamabad.

Saudi Arabia has stepped in with a major gesture of support for Pakistan, with its offer to defer payments on oil shipments to Islamabad worth almost US$6 billion.

The Saudi move highlights the desert kingdom's longstanding ties to Pakistan which it considers a close ally on key security issues including the fight against terror.

For Muslim-majority Pakistan, the Saudi support comes as Islamabad grapples with fast-mounting difficulties driven largely by high global oil prices. Pakistan imports about one-third of its daily petroleum needs from Saudi Arabia.

In the past, too, the Saudis have helped Pakistan in this way when they deferred payments on oil shipments to the south Asian country from 1998 (after Pakistan carried out its first nuclear tests) until 2001.

Those tests in May 1998 were followed by punitive international economic sanctions imposed by countries, including the United States. Eventually, the Saudis wrote off the dues owed by Pakistan on account of the deferred payments on oil.

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