Notwithstanding the fact that Pakistan is vigorously pursuing a policy of peaceful co-existence with its neighbours, relations with India and Afghanistan continue to remain under ever-growing stress. Apart from some issues on the bilateral level, the nosedive in relations with both of them owes much to our relations with the US; difficulties have persisted since 2010 due to the Raymond incident, Salala attack and the Abbottabad operation. Though relations have improved to some extent as a result of the revival of dialogue with the US and the visits of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former COAS General Raheel Sharif to the US, there are still some kinks to be removed.
Pakistan has made several overtures towards India to restart the suspended dialogue and build bonhomie with the purpose of starting a new era of relations dictated by the new emerging regional and global realities but the response unfortunately has been very discouraging. India has not reciprocated Pakistan’s desire for peaceful co-existence. It wants relations on its own terms. It does not want to talk about Kashmir and its focus is only on demonising Pakistan on terrorism.
India has upped the ante against Pakistan by taking hostile actions like campaigning to malign and isolate Pakistan, sabotaging the Saarc Conference, threatening to revoke the Indus Waters Treaty, supporting Baloch insurgents, orchestrating acts of terrorism through its agents, handling uprisings in Kashmir ruthlessly and continuing violations of the ceasefire agreement along the LoC. India and the US have forged strategic relations with the result that the US is not bothered about the security imbalance in the region or the security of Pakistan. It is building India’s security militarily and strategically. This strategic alliance with US is being fully exploited by India to put pressure on Pakistan.
Relations with Afghanistan also have an impact on our relations with the US and vice versa. Our relationship with Afghanistan, which made a promising start with the advent of Ashraf Ghani as the Afghan president in 2014, could not maintain the required momentum as war in the country aggravated. Ashraf Ghani, appalled by the failure of his government to establish its writ, and the inability of the Afghan forces to effectively contain the onslaught of the Taliban, finds it convenient to blame Pakistan of providing sanctuary to Haqqanis who according to him are involved in terrorist acts in Afghanistan. The US which had handed over the security of Afghanistan to the Afghan forces about two years ago, also feels frustrated having been unable to achieve its objectives.
The reality is that Pakistan has taken counterterrorism initiatives like Operation Zarb-e-Azb, border management, repatriation of Afghan refugees, holding of reforms in Fata including development of the area, organising the Heart of Asia Conference, arranging interface between Taliban and the Afghan government with a view to promote an Afghan-led process of reconciliation in that strife-ridden country. But all these efforts are not properly acknowledged either by the US or Afghanistan. The Afghan president’s expectations from Pakistan are unrealistic. He believes that the Taliban will surrender on Pakistan’s request. The Afghan government and the US seem unsure about whether to fight the Taliban or to have a dialogue with them.
As is evident from the foregoing facts, tensions with India and Afghanistan are attributable to the unreasonable responses to Pakistan’s initiatives to improve relations with them rather than to any inadequacy in Pakistan’s foreign policy. However it is encouraging to note that the attempts by India and Afghanistan and to some extent the US to isolate Pakistan have not yielded any positive results. Barring strained relations with both these countries, Pakistan has been substantially successful in achieving its objective of regional connectivity for shared economic prosperity.
Pak-China relations have attained dizzying heights. They are not only economic but also encompass security and counterterrorism cooperation. These ties have great significance from global perspective as well. The CPEC, which has the potential to transform economic profile of the entire region – more so of Pakistan – has been operational. Pakistan has become a full member of the SCO. Relations with Russia are on the upward curve. Both countries have signed a defence agreement under which Russia will sell MI-35 state of the art helicopters to Pakistan. Russia has also agreed to build a gas pipeline from Lahore to Karachi with an investment of $2 billion. It is also interested in using the Gwadar Port for access to the littoral states of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Ties with the Central Asian States have been strengthened and there have been a number of reciprocal high level visits between Pakistan and countries of the region including Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Belarus and others. TAPI and CASA-1000 have been finalised. Relations with Iran have also been strengthened and prospects for completion of the IP gas pipeline have been revived.
Pakistan’s relations with the EU have also kept a positive momentum. Pakistan receiving the GSP Plus status is indicative of that positivity. A summit level meeting with the EU is also expected during 2017 as Pakistan is trying to address some of their concerns. Relations with Muslim countries also remained on a high trajectory. Pakistan rightly maintained a policy of neutrality in the Saudi-Iran conflict and played the role of a mediator along with Turkey to defuse tensions between them.
Pakistan has also successfully pursued diplomacy at the UN besides participating in its peace-keeping missions around the globe. More than 9,000 Pakistan security personnel are on UN duty. Pakistan has also played a positive and vibrant role in climate change conference, UN Human Rights Commission and in the deliberations of the UN Security Council.
Management of international relations is indeed a very arduous task for developing countries like Pakistan because of the ever changing global environment and the policies of global and regional players. Nevertheless all countries orchestrate their foreign policies to protect their national interests. The focus invariably is on building positives.
Viewed from this perspective, one can safely infer from the foregoing facts that the new narrative on foreign policy developed by the present government has certainly been successful in building more positives and reducing the negatives. The policy of peaceful co-existence, non-interference in other’s affairs and vigorous pursuit of building regional linkages has produced very encouraging results.
The writer is a freelance contributor. Email: ashpak10gmail.com