Pakistan recently signed an accord with Iran to build a pipeline that will bring the much-needed natural gas to the country. Promptly, the Obama administration warned Pakistan to stop the pipeline project or the country could face sanctions. Nevertheless, the people of Pakistan, especially the media, supported the project wholeheartedly. The media also showed its annoyance over the objections to the pipeline and pointed out that Russia, China, India, Turkey and Armenia have very close economic ties with Iran.In fact, Armenia and Iran are building a hydro-electric power plant on their shared border. They have also planned to build the North-South railway (Iran-Armenia), which will provide Armenia with an alternative route for transporting energy resources. The $3 billion project has the support of Russia, Iran and China. Also, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have shown their interest in the project.
On the other hand, Turkey is importing 30 million cubic metres per day of Iranian gas. Work on a project to take the Iran gas to Iraq and Syria is also going on. So why is Pakistan being singled out on the gas pipeline issue?
According to information available and published reports, our neighbour Iran has the twenty-fifth largest economy in the world on account of GDP. Also, in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the Iranian economy is the 18th largest in the world. Economists term the Iranian economy as centrally planned, mixed and transition based dominated by oil and gas production.
They also say that in the Middle East, Iran has a good manufacturing industry and leads in the fields of car-manufacturing, transportation, construction materials, home appliances, food and agricultural goods, armaments, pharmaceuticals, information technology, power and petrochemicals.
So in the context of current events, should Pakistan continue to ignore its neighbouring country and allow the relationship to be mired in scourge of geo-political issues?
Experts say that Pakistan should also closely look into the Iranian proposal to draft an energy charter for the members of the Economic Cooperation Organisation. This has been proposed by Irans Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi for expanding cooperation for energy projects and other commercial activities related to the energy sector. According to Qasemi, private entities should be involved in energy cooperation and for guaranteeing regional energy security and free trade among the ECO countries. These entities will be working on trade, transit, investments and energy efficiency besides training, research, distribution, production and exploration. He has also reminded the ECO countries besides Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, the organization includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan that they hold one fourth of the worlds total natural gas reserves and one eighth of crude oil reserves.
The above statistics seem to present the rather stubborn fact that Pakistan cannot ignore its neighbour and other members of the ECO.
While looking at the key trade and geo-political patterns in the world, it is imperative that the Pak-Iran gas pipeline is eminently sensible, should be completed and made operational at all costs. Thus, trade between Pakistan and Iran should not be a cynical exercise mired in political opportunism but should bring the two economies and people closer.
By The News International
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