Russia calls for continuation of dialogue between Pakistan and India

ISLAMABAD: Welcoming the resumption of dialogue between Pakistan and India, Russian ambassador to Islamabad Alexey Y Dedov on Sunday called for continuation of efforts for the resolution of outstanding issues between the two nuclear-capable neighbours.
“We also welcome this kind of developments after the visit of Indian secretary of foreign affairs Subrahmanyan Jaishankar to Islamabad early this month. This process needs continuation in the practical terms,” he said in an exclusive interview with APP here.
He said there was a will in the two countries to pursue dialogue as both Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had demonstrated they wanted to improve their relations. This is a very good trend, said the ambassador who took his assignment in Islamabad last year and is currently visiting different Pakistani cities to explore avenues of economic cooperation between Islamabad and Moscow.
Questioned on Afghanistan situation, he supported Pakistan’s stance by saying that his country wanted an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process for ensuring peace and stability in the war-battered country.
Moscow welcomes the recent developments between Pakistan and Afghanistan following the visit of Afghan president Ashraf Ghani to Islamabad.“Pakistan, being a key player in Afghanistan, will hopefully play its role in stabilising Afghanistan,” said the ambassador Alexey.
The major problem to be resolved in Afghanistan was to start a dialogue with the opposition and it was not a secret that they were quite strong from military point of view. Reintegration of civilian life was a key element of reconciliation otherwise the whole process would be doomed. The militants must be offered jobs as they were being paid handsomely by the terrorists.
“We strongly hope Afghanistan national Army and Afghan National police, with the help of international cooperation, will be able to face the terrorists,” said Alexey.
He said Islamic State of Iraq and Syria had already penetrated into Afghanistan. Although they were not active, sooner or later they will resort to its activities. Afghans need to curb the illicit drug-traffic which was one of the source of financing terrorism. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, he said was also a forum where its members could cooperate for promoting stability in Afghanistan. Pakistan and India will become full member of this organization in July this year, he said and hoped it would help in stepping up cooperation among its member to combat drug-trafficking and terrorism.
On recent inking of defence agreement with Pakistan, the ambassador said,’ military cooperation is becoming one of the important components’ of cooperation with Pakistan.
Regarding sale of MI-35 helicopters to Pakistan, he said Russia was ready to sell these machines to Pakistan and both countries were engaged in negotiations on the issue. He termed it quite a lengthy process of commercial negotiations. The details on quantity or the price per unit would be decided once negotiations were completed which he hoped would be soon.
“We strongly hope that Pakistani purchase of these machines would strengthen anti-terrorists potential of Pakistan. We are actively participating on many international efforts to combat terrorism,” said Alexey.
He said two Russian vessels visited commercial hub of the country Karachi in April and October last year. Russia and Pakistani Coast guards had been cooperating to prevent narcotics flow to Pakistan. Referring to cooperation on helping Pakistan overcome its crippling energy crisis, he said Moscow had shown interest in medium and small scale hydle projects during 3rd meeting of inter-governmental commission last month which could generate 1,770MW electricity.
Giving details the Russian envoy said Moscow had shown its interest to construct 300MW Naran power project and 1,320MW Tarbela Five and two units of Warsak dam on the river Kabul, with the capacity of 150MW. Both signed have already signed a Protocol for construction of these projects. Diamer-Bahshah dam on the river Indus in Gilgit-Baltistan was also on the agenda of talks between the two countries and Russian companies might be interested in it, he added.