Khabar Kay Sath Sath: Visit of Hassan Rouhani will open a new era of Pak-Iran relations
Islamabad, Pakistan: “The forthcoming visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani who is arriving in Islamabad on Friday March 25, 2016 will open a new era of Pak-Iran relationship.
Pakistan always considers Iran as its one of its closest neighbour and both countries are firm to enhance their trade volume over 5 billion $ a year that is just 200 million officially”.
These were expectations of participants in one of the most popular PTV Current Affairs show “Khabar Kay Sath Sath” hosted and anchored by Naheed Chaudhary that was broadcast on March 22, 2016.
Participant of show included senior journalists Tariq Mehmood Chaudhary, Rana Qaisar and Agha Iqrar Haroon were of the view that Iran is offering support to address energy crises of Pakistan by contributing transfer of over 1000 MW electricity to Pakistan and gas through Iran Pakistan India (IPI) project that was halted due to international sanctions over Iran in past. Since a nuclear deal has been reached with World powers and several sanctions have also been lifted, both countries wish to initiate economic projects that can be useful not only for them rather of the region.
Participants said that Iran was buying wheat from different countries as far as Ukraine and also investing huge money in agriculture projects as far as Kazakhstan and Pakistan that is known as wheat bucket in South Asia is the first priority of Iran to procure wheat.
Since today’s Iran is out of international sanctions therefore this is time to work proactively to enhance economic relations between the two countries.
The agenda of meeting of Iranian President include enhancement of bilateral of relations in the fields of Information Technology, Culture, Tourism, Energy and Science and technology sectors.
Iran was first country that recognized Pakistan as an Independent state after subcontinent was given independence by British Raj in 1947. Tourism and trade was on high between the two nations of Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) in 70s and 70s but relationship of both the countries was off the track for sometime due to massive geopolitical changes that took place in the region after 1979 Afghan War. However, people to people relationship always been on upward trend.
Pakistan and Iran are connected by train, road and flight network and tourism, trade and investment are priority sectors in today’s Pak-Iran relations to exploit maximum of their connectivity.
