PAKISTAN and Azerbaijan always enjoyed strong political ties but the visit of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Baku has given a new dimension to the bilateral relations as the leadership of the two countries has demonstrated unparalleled commitment to forge economic links with focus on trade and investment.
After holding all-encompassing talks in Azeri capital, the Prime Minister and his host President Ilham Aliyev revealed at their joint press stakeout that a decision has been taken to formalize $2 billion Azeri investment in Pakistan in just one month and formal agreements would be signed to materialize this commitment during the visit of President Ilham Aliyev to Pakistan in April.
The fast-track implementation will surely go a long way in fostering economic ties between the two countries to their mutual advantage and hopefully open more avenues for broadening this cooperative partnership.
State level decisions generally take time to come to fruition but it is because of the strong commitment of President Ilham Aliyev to the cause of Pakistan that he readily agreed to accelerate the process of implementation for $2 billion investment, an announcement for which was made during his visit to Islamabad in July last year.
Credit also goes to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who demonstrated his famous “Shehbaz Speed” in this respect as well, for quickly preparing concrete proposals for investment that have been shared with the other side and President Ilham has directed relevant ministries and departments to evaluate and finalize them into agreements by the deadline of April.
The Azerbaijan leader emphasized that these projects cover infrastructure development areas as well as energy, economic, mining and others.
As pointed out by the Prime Minister, this will give a quantum jump to bilateral trade and investment relations and will be a huge reflection of our fraternal ties.
The sincerity of the Azeri President towards Pakistan was also highlighted by his decision to forge his country’s cooperation with Pakistan in the realm of energy, which is a top priority with Islamabad.
The energy-deficient Pakistan is exploring different avenues to overcome its woes in the field and during the visit, Azerbai-jan’s state-owned oil company, SOCAR, exchanged several MOUs with Pakistan’s oil trading and refining companies, including one to complete the Machike-Thallian-Tarujabba White Oil Pipeline Project is designed to transport oil within Pakistan.
Both sides also signed updated agreements and MOUs on the delivery of LNG, from Azerbaijan to Pakistan.
Signed in 2023, the agreement envisages Pakistan can procure one shipload of LNG per month when required, without any financial commitments – a major concession as it allows Pakistan to purchase energy products as needed rather than using precious foreign exchange reserves to pay for unused cargo.
We have been emphasizing that in view of discriminatory attitudes of important suppliers of the military equipment, Pakistan should enter into joint ventures with friendly countries for defence production to meet requirements of the defence forces.
With this in view, it is encouraging that Azerbaijan has shown keen interest in defence products of Pakistan and there are strong possibilities of initiating joint ventures.
In this regard, the re-marks made by President Ilham Aliyev are meaningful who said “Azerbaijan has already acquired defence equipment from Pakistan and we are satisfied with the quality of this equipment and we will continue to do that.
” The two sides also discussed the opportunity of joint manufacturing in defence industrial items, which will be another important sector of bilateral cooperation.
It may also be mentioned that Azerbaijan has already signed a deal with Pakistan for purchase of JF-17 Thunder block III fighter jets.
Azerbaijan is also one of the few countries that offer unwavering support to Pakistan on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and plays an active role as member of the OIC Contact Group on Kashmir.
Similarly, Pakistan has also been supporting Azerbai-jan’s legitimate stance on the issue of Karabakh.
We hope that the strategic partnership of the two countries will receive further boost during the April visit of President Ilham.
