Pakistan in Media

The News International, Pakistan, Sunday, July 05, 2009
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has decided to seek parliament’s approval for the multi-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project. He has asked the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources to prepare a feasibility report within two weeks on the viability of bringing the gas pipeline through an underwater sea route.

The decisions were taken during a presentation on energy securitisation by developing and exploiting hydro carbon resources here on Saturday. Adviser on Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain briefed the PM on the status of the IPI project.
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Daily Times, Pakistan, Monday, June 22, 2009
The view in Pakistan is that Iran’s post-election unrest should not be overblown as some kind of terminal crisis, and if there is a problem it is a passing contradiction within the clerical hierarchy. Discussions on TV channels have decried the tendency in the Western media to look at the protests in the streets of some cities as the harbinger of a new order in the country that will radically change the map of Middle Eastern politics in favour of the United States. Mercifully, the White House has reined in adverse comment to allow the events in Iran to unfold to their logical conclusion.
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The News International, Pakistan, Sunday, June 21, 2009
TEHRAN: Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said he was “ready for martyrdom”, according to an ally, in leading protests that have shaken the Islamic Republic and brought warnings of bloodshed from Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Mousavi also called on Saturday for a national strike if he is arrested, a witness said. As darkness fell, rooftop cries of Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) sounded out across northern Tehran for nearly an hour, an echo of tactics used in the 1979 Islamic revolution against the Shah.

In an act fraught with symbolic significance, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the mausoleum of the father of Iran’s Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, while unrest continued across Tehran in defiance of a ban on demonstrations.
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The News International, Pakistan
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
There is growing speculation that the unthinkable could happen in Iran. In the aftermath of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in a poll which many in Iran think was rigged, the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself seems to be facing more and more heat – not least after the deaths of several people during a rally on June 15 were reported by the Iranian media on June 16. There are those who believe he may even be ousted – in a series of events as startling as those of 1979 when the Shah was toppled in the revolution that converted Iran into an Islamic state – and they point to a message by the sidelined, one-time successor of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, to the youth of the country to "pursue peaceful protest".
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The News International, Pakistan
Saturday, June 06, 2009

ANKARA: The gas pipeline project between neighboring Pakistan and Iran has been formally signed here late on Friday, Geo news reported.

The agreement was signed between Iranian National Oil Company (INOC) and Pakistani Interstate Gas Company (PIGC).

The Managing Director (MD) of PIGC Hassan Nawab told Geo news the agreement is governed through third country law so it was bound to be signed in a third country and has been signed here in Turkey.

He said the work on the project has commenced from today (Friday) and will be completed by 2013 whereby Pakistan will receive 750 cubic million gas on daily basis which will be enough for generation of 4000 megawatt electricity.

“The gas pipeline will begin from Gawadar near Iranian border having 800 kilometer length”, he maintained adding, “The determination of gas price will be linked with contemporary oil prices at international market but will be less than 25 per cent as compared to crude oil prices”.

The estimated cost of the project will be US $1.2 billion, he added.

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Dawn, Pakistan

Mon, 01 Jun, 2009

TEHRAN: Iran summoned Pakistan’s ambassador over the deadly bombing of a mosque in the southeast after Sunni rebels reportedly claimed responsibility, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.

Mohammad Bakhsh Abbasi was summoned after Iran’s state television quoted the pan-Arab channel Al-Arabiya as saying that the Jandullah (Soldiers of God) group said it was behind Thursday’s mosque attack which killed 25 people.

According to state television, the chief of the Iranian armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, said on Saturday that Iran ‘has located the base of the group’s head and informed Pakistan’s government of his arrest.’

The Iranian authorities said they immediately arrested three men involved in the bombing. The trio were executed on Saturday morning near the mosque in Zahedan city, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province.

In recent years, the restive province has been the scene of a deadly insurgency by Jundallah, which is strongly opposed to the government of predominantly Shiite Iran.

The province has a substantial Sunni minority and lies on a major narcotics-smuggling route from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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"They should be natural allies, but whether one likes it or not and for whatever reasons one wishes to name, the fact is that the foreign policy options of Afghanistan (drastically) and Pakistan (to a lesser extent) are limited by the will of the United States."

Editorial, Frintier Post, Pakistan
May 26, 2009

The commitment to jointly battle their common enemies of extremism, militancy and terrorism by the presidents of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan at their Tehran summit was laudable. The real problem, however, is the history of relations over the least three decades among the three brotherly states.

Apart from their geographical proximity, they have much in common that should serve as a basis for everlastingly binding their peoples together. They should be natural allies.

Yet it has not been these commonalities that have shaped their relations. Instead, compulsions fraught with unquenchable animosity have often times been the drivers of their ties. Had they allowed there mutual affinities to guide their affairs, in all probability the three countries would not now be so blighted by the monstrosities of extremism, militancy and terrorism that exact such a heavy toll. There's no point going into that dismal past. What is done is done - and cannot be undone.

But if history can't be re-written, the narrative of what happens now and in the future is open. To do better this time will necessarily entail unvarnished sincerity, commitment and a steely resolve, come what may. But that's easier said than done. If the past is any guide, one must be indeed skeptical. Without apportioning blame, none of these three fraternal states has an unblemished track record. None have acted correctly and angelically; each has sinned against the others - even if in varying degree.

When Afghanistan allowed itself to be ravaged by civil strife and internecine conflict, incited, fueled and backed by foreigners, both Pakistan and Iran were caught fishing for trouble in Afghanistan's waters by backing opposing rivals. An example is the late 1990s, when Islamabad sat in the ruling Taliban’s corner while Tehran sided with their adversary, the Northern Alliance [as did the United States].

If all of this is over and real changes of heart have occurred in Kabul, Tehran and Islamabad, this should augur well for upcoming relations between the three. But there's a snag. For the Tehran Declaration to come to fruition, it is imperative that the three have complete sovereign control of their foreign policies. This cannot be said of Kabul or Islamabad, although Tehran may have decisive foreign policy control. Whether one likes it or not and for whatever reasons one wishes to name, the fact is that the foreign policy options of Afghanistan (drastically) and Pakistan (to a lesser extent) are limited by the will of the United States.

That leaves open the question of whether this new commitment among Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran will succeed, as U.S. relations with Tehran remain frosty, notwithstanding the new U.S. administration’s warm overtures. Then there's a domestic factor that could potentially stall the execution of this commitment. Both Iran and Afghanistan will soon hold presidential elections and in both the countries, the incumbents are running again. So at least for now, carrying out this commitment is bound to take a backseat to hectic electioneering. And there's yet another predictable hitch: due to the lack of a serious challenger, Afghan President Karzai seems like a shoo-in. And since he is abhorred by the Obama Administration, there's feverish talk of elevating someone of Washington’s choice as the country’s true national leader [a prime minister], with Karzai reduced to being an ineffectual head of state [such as the office of Israeli president, presently occupied by Shimon Peres]. Given the overarching influence of the United States due to the huge amount of aid to the country, even regarding Afghanistan's domestic affairs, this may indeed come to pass.

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The New York Times
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: May 24, 2009

CAIRO — Iran hosted its first three-way summit meeting on Sunday with Pakistan and Afghanistan to discuss cooperation on regional issues, the latest sign of Iran’s emergence as the regional power.

With Pakistan and Afghanistan fighting to hold back the rising tide of radical, Islamic insurgencies led by the Taliban, the meeting in Tehran seemed intended by Iran to assure its neighbors that working together the three could solve their problems without having to rely on the West.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran suggested that the United States was the main problem when he described “others who are alien to the nations and culture of our nations.” It was a not-too-subtle swipe, but still one that Washington’s allies from Pakistan and Afghanistan did not rebut. That served as another sign that Iran was increasingly seen as less of a threat to the West, and the region, than the prospect of the Taliban’s controlling Pakistan or Afghanistan.

“If we can save Pakistan and Afghanistan from these problems, from extremism,” President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan said in comments broadcast in Iran, “then such trilateral meetings are meaningful.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Karzai and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan signed an agreement — called the Tehran Statement — in which they committed to work together to fight Islamic extremism and stop drug smuggling across their borders. Though the declaration did not outline specific action, it served as a sort of bookend to changes in regional dynamics that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and of Iraq in March 2003.

The summit meeting also served as proof that Western efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear energy program, through unilateral and United Nations Security Council sanctions, have given way to more pragmatic regional concerns.

Although the presidents of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan had met before in a larger gathering of regional leaders, the summit meeting on Sunday was the first among just the three of them.

Iran’s president, Mr. Ahmadinejad, said he was confident the meeting would “guarantee security and expansion of cooperation in the region,” in remarks reported by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency. Iran was once bitter enemies with the Taliban, which controlled Afghanistan before the American-led invasion there. Iran was also once a regional rival of Pakistan. Iran is a Shiite Muslim state. Pakistan is a Sunni Muslim state, and often sided with other Sunni states, like Saudi Arabia, against Iran in political and regional matters.

Now, with the Taliban routed from power but waging an aggressive insurgency in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the presidents of those two countries have turned to Iran, on their western borders, for help.

“There are many problems along our joint borders,” Mr. Zardari said, in comments reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency. “We cannot underestimate the problems and we should look for solutions to all of them.”

President Obama has also sought to re-engage diplomatically with Iran after three decades of animosity between it and the United States. Iranian officials have given mixed signals, sticking with their death-to-America ideology at home while suggesting that after presidential elections in Iran next month they may be willing to open talks.

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May 24, 2009
TEHRAN (APP) -- Leaders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan will meet today to discuss and hammer out a joint strategy to tackle the issue of terrorism and militancy, confronting the region.


Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, who reached Tehran on Saturday evening, had proposed this trilateral summit when he met President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and President Hamid Karzai on the sidelines of 10th ECO Summit in Tehran in March.

“The main issues to be discussed in the summit include terrorism -- which has taken grip over the whole region and also the world -- drug trafficking and human trafficking,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to Iran M.B. Abbasi told APP.

He said these issues are confined not only to this region but also have a far-reaching impact on the whole world.

“We are making history, as it is for the first time that Iran is being equally integrated with the issues that Pakistan and Afghanistan are facing”, he said.

“We will come out with solutions for problems that we might perceive in future,” he said.

Ambassador Abbasi termed the holding of Pakistan-Afghan-Iran summit an achievement of Pakistan. He said President Zardari during his visit to Tehran in March proposed that Iran, being an important player of the region, must be included and should be on board to tackle the issues confronting this region.

Besides attending the trilateral summit, President Zardari will also hold bilateral meetings with his Iranian and Afghan counterparts for increased cooperation in trade, economic and other spheres on bilateral front.

President Zardari and the Iranian President during their bilateral meeting are likely to review the whole range of bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields, with particular focus on trade, energy, communication and infrastructure.

With Pakistani Advisor on Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr. Asim Hussain already in Tehran to hold meeting on the multi-billion dollars gas pipeline project, which is currently in the finalization stages, a major headway is expected during President Zardari’s visit.

As Pakistan is facing severe electricity crises, President Zardari is expected to seek Iranian cooperation with particular reference to the proposed 1000 MW power supply from Iran to Pakistan via Balochistan.

President Zardari will also hold bilateral meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai during which the two sides are expected to discuss increased cooperation in various areas.

They are likely to discuss trade and economy and increased cooperation in tackling the challenges of terrorism and militancy.

Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Advisor to PM on Finance Shaukat Tarin and senior officials will assist President Zardari at the summit as well as during his bilateral meetings.

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