As US influence in Islamabad wanes, Pakistan’s former adversary Russia is building military, diplomatic and economic ties that could upend historic alliances in the region and open up a fast-growing gas market for Moscow’s energy companies. Russia’s embrace of Pakistan comes at a time when relations between the United States and its historical ally are unravelling over the war in Afghanistan, a remarkable turnaround from the 1980s.
Though the Moscow-Islamabad rapprochement is in its infancy, a slew of energy deals and growing military cooperation promise to spark life into the Russia-Pakistan relationship that was dead for many decades.
“It is an opening,” Khurram Dastgir Khan, Pakistan’s Defence Minister, said. “Both countries have to work through the past to open the door to the future.”
“We have common ground on most issues at diplomatic levels,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said. “It’s a relationship that will grow substantially in the future.”
During a trip to Moscow last month by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Khawaja Asif, the two countries announced plans to establish a commission on military cooperation to combat threats in the region.
They also agreed to continue annual military training exercises that began in 2016 and followed the sale of four Russian attack helicopters to Pakistan, as well as the purchase of Russian engines for the Pakistan Air Force’s JF-17 fighter jets that Pakistan’s military assembles on its own soil.
Russia and Pakistan are negotiating potential energy deals worth in excess of $10 billion, according to Pakistani energy officials.
Asif said four to five huge power projects “will cement our relationship further”.
Russia last month appointed an honorary council in the Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, where its companies are in talks to build an oil refinery and a power station.
But the biggest deals focus on gas supply and infrastructure to Pakistan, one of the world’s fastest growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) import markets.
“On a strategic basis, Russia is coming in very fast on the energy side,” said a senior Pakistani energy official.
In October, Pakistan and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) on energy, paving the way for Russian state-giant Gazprom to enter negotiations to supply LNG to Pakistan.
The talks are expected to conclude within three months and Gazprom is considered “one of the front-runners” to clinch a long-term supply deal, according to the Pakistani official. — Reuters
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
