Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and President Mehmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday agreed to give fresh impetus to the existing bilateral cooperation in various fields, ranging from trade and economy to security and intelligence sharing.
During a meeting at the Iranian President’s House, the two leaders said an increase in collaboration between the two countries is important to enhancing trade volume compatible with their proximity and potential. The Iranian president said three countries of the region – Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan – should make coordinated efforts to solve the problems of security and development so that no outside assistance is required by them.
The PM said that the Iranian interior minister would visit Pakistan and would hold discussions with his counterpart in Islamabad in the context of his instructions that Iranian government’s concerns on the borders of Balochistan, Sistan must be addressed to their satisfaction. Gilani said there was a paradigm shift in Pakistan’s foreign policy and now it wanted to maintain close relations with the neighbours and Iran was one of those countries with which it would like to have very close relations.
Gilani agreed with the Iranian president that the gas pipeline project and import of 1,000MW electricity from Iran should be expedited as Pakistan was facing acute energy shortage which is hampering the pace of growth of its economy. Ahmadinejad assured Gilani that Pakistan would be given priority in meeting the requirements of Iran and the goods and services which are available in Pakistan would be given preferential treatment.
$10B TRADE: Both the sides committed that they will not spare any effort to boost the trade to the extent of $10 billion. The current volume of trade between the two countries is $1.2 billion, with Pakistan’s exports only at around $ 200 million. Gilani also had a meeting with Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi.
