Russia wants strong economic ties with Pakistan: envoy

LAHORE: Russian Ambassador in Pakistan Mr Alexey Yurivich Dedov Friday addressed the students of Government College University, Lahore, on the geopolitics and new trends in Pak-Russia relations.

GCU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah and Political Science Department Chairperson Prof Dr Khalid Manzoor Butt also attended the Russian ambassador’s invited talk organised by the university’s Quaid-e-Azam Political Science Society at the Fazl-e-Hussain Reading Room. The talk was followed by an hour-long interactive question-answer session.

Alexey Yurivich Dedov highlighted the ongoing technical and economic cooperation of Russia in several projects in Pakistan especially gas pipeline via Iran to Pakistan, saying that Moscow looked forward to having strong economic relationship with Pakistan.

The Russian envoy said Russia supported peace talks with al-Qaeda. He said ISIS was a bigger threat to the world peace than al-Qeada. He highlighted Russia and Pakistan were holding joint military exercises which were focused on counter-terrorism training.

Talking about the history of Pakistan-Russia relationships, Alexey Yurivich Dedov termed the 1960s as the golden era in which Pakistan witnessed economic progress with the support of USSR.

Replying to a question by a student, the Russian envoy said they granted more visas to Pakistanis this year than previous years. He also told the students said that there was a considerable population of Muslims in Moscow and some other areas of Russia.

Talking to the ambassador, the VC highlighted the issue of limited scholarships for Pakistani students in Russia. He also laid stress on enhancing academic and research collaboration between the universities of both countries.