Iranian President's visit to Pakistan
IRANIAN President, Dr. Hassan Rouhani's visit to Pakistan from 25-26 March is a welcome sign that the leaders of the two countries are determined to provide a boost to PakistanIran cooperation in political, economic, commercial and cultural fields, improve border security, join hands in overcoming extremism and terrorism, make an effort to coordinate their Afghanistan policies, and generally strengthen Pakistan-Iran friendship. The visit took place approximately three years after Hassan Rouhani's election as the President of Iran in 2013. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had visited Tehran twice, in May 2014 and earlier this year in January. During his visit, President Hassan Rouhani held talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, President Mamnoon Hussain, and General Raheel Sharif besides addressing a meeting of the Pakistan-Iran Joint Business Forum anda joint news conference with the Prime Minister in Islamabad.
Hassan Rouhani's visit took place against the background of a slow but steady process of improvement of Pakistan-Iran relations, which had been badly damaged during the 1990's because of the clash of their Afghanistan policies. It was natural that the bitter memories of the two countries' confrontation in Afghanistan and the mutual mistrust caused by it would fade away only gradually. It goes to the credit of the leaders on both sides to have realized that the security of Pakistan and Iran is closely "intertwined and interdependent" as the Iranian President put it in his press conference in Islamabad. There are also promising opportunities for strengthening bilateral cooperation in economic, commercial, technical, and cultural fields. The signing of the deal on Iran's nuclear program and the lifting of the nuclear-related sanctions by the UN Security Council, the US and EU have paved the way for the development of closer economic and commercial ties between Pakistan and Iran. The fact that a 60-member delegation of Iranian businessmen accompanied Hassan Rouhani during his visit to Pakistan shows that Tehran would like both sides to take full advantage of the new opportunities for closer economic cooperation.
The visit resulted in the signing of six MOU's on promoting bilateral cooperation in various fields. It was decided to increase the annual bilateral trade to $ 5 billion within the next five years. However, this goal is likely to remain a pipedream unless the two governments take specific and well-considered steps to promote bilateral trade. On the Iranian side, this would involve the removal of non-tariff barriers on trade with Pakistan, particularly those involving Pakistani textiles, rice, fruit and other agricultural products, and the lowering of tariffs.
Pakistan would have to make a special effort to resume and increase the purchase of crude oil from Iran. Hopefully, the discussion of the issue of enhancing the connectivity between Gawadar and Chabahar ports through rail, road and shipping links during the visit would also help in promoting trade between the two countries and enabling the two ports to complement each other.
The completion and operationaliza- tion of Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline would be the most important step that the two countries can take for the development of their economic ties. Hassan Rouhani pointed out that the pipeline was almost complete on the Iranian side. It is now for the government of Pakistan to fulfill its part of the deal so that the pipeline can be operationalized as soon as possible, thus, going a long way towards meeting our fast growing requirements for natural gas. We should go even further and link the IranPakistan gas pipeline with the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, which might facilitate the export of the Iranian gas to China through Pakistan and make Pakistan the hub of the regional trade and energy corridors. Pakistan can also import electricity from Iran to overcome its power shortage especially in Balochistan. Hassan Rouhani offered to export up to 3000 mw of electricity to Pakistan which is already importing about 100 mw of electricity from Iran for meeting the requirements of its border areas.
The Iranian President also exchanged views with PM Nawaz Sharif on the Afghan peace process during the visit. The Iranian side agreed to the Pakistani proposal for trilateral talks among Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan on the issue. This was an important development considering the damage that the differences of their Afghanistan policies had inflicted on Pakistan-Iran relations before 9/11. Further, considering the long border that Iran has with Afghanistan and its deep historical and cultural links with the latter, the coordination of the Afghanistan policies of Pakistan and Iran is an indispensable condition for the success of the Afghan peace process.