President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday called for early convening of the fourth Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan Trilateral Summit and assured Pakistan was fully supportive of the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
Talking to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after participating in the International Nauroz Conference, the president said as neighbours, Pakistan and Iran had shared objectives in the region and the two countries needed to work together to confront their challenges.
The three countries have been holding trilateral summits since 2009 to expand socio-economic cooperation. The last summit was held at Islamabad on February 17, 2012.
The president said there was a need to have greater coordination with Afghanistan to promote peace and reconciliation.
He said the seventh trilateral meeting with Turkey on
Afghanistan in December, 2012 was very successful.
The two leaders observed that Nauroz had provided them a good opportunity to meet again and recalled their last two meetings in February and March, which they termed historic.
President Zardari had joined his Iranian counterpart on the
Pak-Iran border on March 11 this year for the ground breaking of the 780 km long Pakistani portion of the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project that will bring 21.5 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas to Pakistan daily. Iran has already constructed more than 900 km of the pipeline on its soil.
President Zardari said the IP gas pipeline symbolised fraternal relationship between the two countries and described it a leap forward in their bilateral relations.
The president said the peace pipeline would serve mutual interests and was not against any country. He said Pakistan was committed to timely completion of the IP gas pipeline.
He said a number of other economic projects were in the pipeline between Iran and Pakistan, including electricity import, wheat export and rail and road connectivity.
He expressed the hope that opening of a Pakistani Consulate
General in Bandar Abbas and a cultural centre in Tehran would contribute to promotion of trade and tourism between the two countries.
He said visa facilitation and opening of new border posts at Mand-Pishin and Gabd-Reemdan to connect Karachi and Gwadar with Chahbahar and Bandar Abbas through the coastal highway were important steps to connect the two countries.
Zardari expressed hope that both border crossings would become operational at the earliest.
He said these crossing points would allow goods’ trucks to reach Iran from Karachi in one day.
Discussing militancy and terrorism, Zardari said extremism was a common enemy and said such a mindset needed to be defeated for defeating terrorism.
President Zardari said Pakistan and Iran were not only neighbours but relations between the two countries were also based on common bonds of history, culture and faith.
