ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi this week assured China’s consul general that the security of Chinese nationals in the South Asian country is Pakistan’s “core responsibility,” state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said, as Islamabad looks to bolster security of foreign nationals amid a surge in attacks. 

Pakistan says it has taken steps to enhance Chinese nationals’ security in the country after a suicide bomber last month attacked a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a hydropower project in the northwestern town of Dasu. Five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver were killed in the attack. 

The attack was the third major one in a little over a week on China’s interests in the South Asian nation, where Beijing has invested over $65 billion in energy, infrastructure and other projects as part of its wider Belt and Road initiative.

“Chinese nationals’ safety is our core responsibility, instructions have been issued to the concerned agencies to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens,” Naqvi told Chinese Consul General Zhao Shiren during a meeting in Islamabad on Saturday. 

“The minister informed about the measures taken about the security of Chinese citizens, adding that it is our national responsibility.”

The minister assured Shiren that Pakistani authorities would not allow conspiracies to harm Pakistan’s friendship with China. 

Meanwhile, the Chinese envoy said the two countries were all-weather friends. 

Chinese interests in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province have also been under attack primarily by the militants, who seek to push Beijing out of the mineral-rich territory.

Pakistan is home to an insurgency launched by ethnic Baloch separatists who seek secession from the central government in the country, blaming it for the inequitable division of natural resources in the southwestern Balochistan province. The government denies this.