BEIJING:In the past year, under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan achieved historic milestones on the diplomatic front, not only having enhanced its international status, but also having made great contributions to the maintenance of international and regional peace.
These views were expressed by Cheng Xizhong, Visiting Professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, former Defence Attache in South Asian countries in an article issued here on Tuesday.
The most impressive point is that Pakistan has achieved a diplomatic transformation, that is, from geopolitics to geo-economics, focusing on geo-economics leveraging its geopolitical significance.
This has created favourable conditions for the integration of Pakistan with the world economy, the substantial increase of commodity exports, the continuous inflow of foreign capital into Pakistan, and the promotion of the development of the national economy, thus, having enhanced Pakistan’s strength status and ability to resist various risks.
Another notable feature is that while constantly consolidating and developing traditional friendly and cooperative relations with China, Pakistan has actively interacted with Russia and significant development has taken place in bilateral relations.
Pakistan and Russia continue to deepen their cooperation in economic, energy, defense, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, and information and cyber security. As far as the Afghan issue is concerned, Pakistan and Russia are both important countries. Constantly deepening Pakistan-Russia cooperative relations is conducive to the respective interests of both sides, the positive development of the situation in Afghanistan and the maintenance of regional peace and stability.
Prof. Cheng believes that as an important country in the region, Pakistan has made two outstanding diplomatic contributions in the past year. First, it has safeguarded the authority of the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and deeply exposed the violations of human rights by the regional power on various international occasions.
Therefore, it has won the strong and unanimous support of the international community for the Kashmiris struggle for national self-determination.A
Second, as the most important close neighbour, Pakistan has played an irreplaceable role on the Afghan issue.
Pakistan geared its diplomacy in advocating and garnering regional and international consensus on the need for constructive and sustained engagement with the new interim authorities in Afghanistan over the humanitarian crisis and the risk of economic collapse.
As another sincere effort, Pakistan initiated the extraordinary session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, which led to establishment of a Humanitarian Trust Fund under the Islamic Development Bank, and launching of a food security program.
Pakistan has made great efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis and avoid economic collapse in Afghanistan.
Generally speaking, in the past year, despite the continuous troubles made by the regional power and the complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the regional situation has basically remained peaceful and stable, and Pakistan has made great contributions to this end, he added.
