Islamabad: Saudi Arabia has dismissed reports that the US is pressuring it to allow former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to return to Pakistan ahead of the upcoming general elections even as a Pakistani minister said the PML-N leader could not come back for another three years.

"There was never any pressure from the United States on the government of Saudi Arabia regarding the matter of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif," said a press release issued by the Saudi embassy here.

The embassy described as baseless and false the reports in a section of the media about pressure on the Saudi government for letting Sharif return to Pakistan.

A year after being removed in a bloodless coup by President Pervez Musharraf, Sharif went into exile in Saudi Arabia in 2000 in exchange for the dropping of a jail term. Sharif tried to return to Pakistan last month but was deported to Saudi Arabia within hours of flying into Islamabad.

The Saudi embassy's release said the issue is "strictly between the brotherly countries of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and there is no question of pressure being exerted by a third country".

"Any insinuation to that effect in the news item is completely fictitious and highly regrettable and is condemned in the strongest possible terms," it said, adding Pakistan's Foreign Office too has issued a clarification on the issue.

Referring to the close ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the release said, "There is, therefore, absolutely no need for involving other friends regarding matters that are strictly between our two countries."

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamil Ali Agha said Sharif could not return for three more years under the terms of an agreement he had signed to leave Pakistan for 10 years. "So there is no question of his return before the upcoming general election," he said.

Source : PTI