Iqbal calls for creating community of shared prosperity in region

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday suggested that Pakistan, China and Iran should create a community of shared prosperity in the region.

He was addressing an international conference on, “Pakistan-China-Iran: A Trident of Regional Connectivity”, organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI).

"The age of geopolitics is over and the time has come for Pakistan to focus on geo-economics while looking for the regional options.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) envisages regional connectivity, therefore, we are looking forward to Iran for developing new infrastructure in the region and beyond.

He said Pakistan and Iran need to learn from China''s approach of reaping benefits by creating peace in the region.

He suggested that the three countries should create a community of shared prosperity in the region.

Earlier, in his opening remarks, Chairman ISSI, Ambassador Khalid Mahmood spoke about the goodwill that prevails among the three countries and said that the stage was set for them to achieve new milestones in economy.

Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing chaired the first session, Pakistan-China-Iran: Analyzing the Prospects of Triangular Cooperation.

In their presentation over the session, Research Fellow of Fudan University, Shanghai Lin Minwang discussed the possibilities of the trilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Senior expert at the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), Tehran Ambassador Alireza Bikdeli, emphasized that Iran and Pakistan must try to benefit to the maximum from their neighbourhood position while keeping common development plans away from securitization.

Principal and Dean S3H of National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Pakistan Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, suggested a two-pronged approach to cement the trilateral cooperation: facilitating the trident through constructing regional institutions; and providing specific support to the least developed countries in the region.

Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan Mehdi Honardoost, chairing the second session on Pakistan-China-Iran: Initiatives for Regional Connectivity, opened the floor on a very positive note that regionalism was the key principle of Iranian foreign policy and it had much more to offer in energy market and transit trade to further this initiative.