ISLAMABAD: Former Iranian foreign minister Seyed Kamal Kharazi backed Pakistan’s call for Afghan peace process, saying that the involvement of Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan government was mandatory, as any such development would invalidate the legitimate reasoning for United States (US) forces to stay in Afghanistan.
Addressing a seminar titled “Emerging Regional and Global Scenario: A Perspective from Iran” held under the aegis of Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations head Kharazi lauded Pakistan’s neutral stance over Yemen conflict and called for both Pakistan and Iran to join hands and work together to ensure regional and global peace.
The session was chaired by former foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmad Khan. It was attended by a number of analysts, academics, members of Islamabad’s intelligentsia, Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan Mehdi Honardoost and other officials from the Iranian embassy.
Kharazi was of the view that any cooperation of Iran with India could never be against Pakistan and the same way no alliance of Pakistan with Saudi Arabia could be against Iran. He said that every country strived to serve its own interests but its increasing relations with India were not going to hurt Pakistan in any way.
He said that Pakistan and Iran enjoyed cultural, religious, geographical and historical ties and even their interests were not much dissimilar from each other.
It was thus the need of time that these deep-rooted relations were graduated to strong economic ties which would provide significant impetus to the region’s economic growth. The Iranian former foreign secretary termed the linking of Gwadar and Chabahar port as an important step that should be taken in this regard.
Speaking about some of the conflicts that existed between the Iran and Pakistan, Kharazi said that none of those issues were serious in nature and hence they should not affect the policies of either country for each other.
He stressed that Iran and Pakistan should join hand and work together in this regard as both countries had suffered extensively over the matter. He said that US, on the other hand, would want to extend its stay in Afghanistan as much as possible as this would help it keep an eye on China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
Talking about the status of the nuclear deal between US and Iran following Trump threats, Kharazi said that though Iran was still sticking to the agreement, US was trying to run away from it and had already started violating the deal in the process. He said that the options for Iran were still open in case of US violations; European countries though were still keen on keeping the deal intact, he added.
On the presence of Daa’ish in the region, he said that the terrorist organisation was formed to counter the Iranian revolution but it failed to serve the purpose. He said that Daa’ish had recruited 80 thousand personnel which included 50 thousand fighters from different countries. If Daa’ish had been successful in Iran and Syria, then it would have split the countries into parts, to the benefit of Israel’s designs for the region, he asserted.
The speaker also explained the reasons behind Iran’s support for Bashar al-Assad’s government and stated that according to their reports, it was Israel’s plan to break Syria into two through Daa’ish.
He believed that such a situation would not be in the good interest of Muslim world. Kharazi said that since any such occurrence would also have an impact on Iran, it was only natural for Iran to favor Assad over the matter. The matter for Iran was not about the Shia-Sunni divide as the country was already working with Sunnis in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, he added.
Presiding over the session, former foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmad Khan opined that Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia should join hands to provide the much-needed leadership for the Muslim world. He said that Pakistan’s participation in the Saudi Arabia-led military alliance was not against Iran; instead the country’s involvement might help in making sure that no offensive measure was being taken by the alliance against Iran.
Talking about the state of Muslim countries, he said that the Muslim world possessed about 80 per cent of all energy resources and about 60 per cent of all natural resources of the world but the combined GDP of Muslim countries constituted to only five per cent of the world’s total GDP.
Building on his argument, he said that the United Nations (UN) had failed to stamp its authority by not playing any role to improve the situation in Kashmir and Palestine, whereas Afghanistan and Syria were also burning but UN was doing nothing in this regard as well. He said that the Muslim world needed the alliance of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in such a situation if it was to answer the stern challenges faced ahead.
