New Delhi: Now, Saudi Arabia proposes to help initiating dialogues between India and Pakistan with Saudi Arabia hoping India and Pakistan will resume peace talks and asked that it will be happy to help the process but only if it is asked to do so.

Saudi ambassador Saud bin Mohammed al-Sati said that he had noted the “reference that the Prime Minister-elect of Pakistan, Imran Khan, made regarding India — that if India takes one step, we will take two”. It was encouraging, he said, that this was followed by Prime Minister NarendraModi’s phone call to Khan to congratulate him on his electoral success.

“These were very positive. Pakistan is a strong partner of Saudi Arabia and India is our strategic partner and we hope that dialogue will be resumed between the two countries,” he said. “If we can and if we are asked to help, we will be very happy to help,” he added.

During an interview, al-Sati spoke on a wide range of issues, including bilateral security cooperation and Iran’s alleged meddling in Afghanistan.

Referring to the arrest of a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operative at the New Delhi airport after his deportation from Saudi Arabia on August 5, the envoy said there is “excellent” cooperation between the two sides to counter extremism and terror financing.

“There is no outstanding issue in terms of security cooperation…there is zero terror financing (from Saudi Arabia) and we don’t allow any (illegal) money transfers to any organizations worldwide and particularly to India,” he said.

Asked what action Saudi Arabia will take if controversial preacher ZakirNaik, whose extradition has been sought from Malaysia, returned to the kingdom, al-Sati said he would not go into hypothetical matters.