Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday called up former Indian Ambassador to Iraq Suresh Reddy, who has been specially deputed by the Central Government to oversee rescue operations of Indians trapped in strife torn country, to ensure safety and prompt return of the Punjabis to the State.
The Chief Minister urged Reddy to sort out issues of those Punjabis who were willing to comeback but their employers were reluctant to relieve them due to certain reasons adding that the Centre must get any issue related to the employers settled through direct intervention of labour department of the Iraqi National Government on priority.
Meanwhile, Joint Secretary (Gulf and Haj) from Ministry of External Affairs Mridul Kumar called on Chief Minister at Kapurthala House to apprise him about Centre’s initiatives for safe and early evacuation of Indians especially the Punjabis stuck over in Iraqi civil war.Badal asked the Joint Secretary to bail out Punjabis trapped in war zone there by facilitating them a safe return to their country.Apart from this, he also asked Mridul Kumar to ensure the return of even those Punjabis settled in safe zone of Iraq but were now willing to come back here due to sense of uncertainty and fear.
Expressing satisfaction over the initiatives taken by the Ministry of External affairs to secure safe release of Punjabis from war torn Iraq, the Chief Minister conveyed his heartfelt gratitude to the Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for taking personal pains and keen interest in this regard.Badal said that he was keen to meet the Union External Affairs Minister to update her on the latest developments but she was unavailable due to a foreign visit.