Azerbaijan’s President Visit to Pakistan: A new strategic road map
Editor's note: Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan, an Executive director of the Center for South Asia and International Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan.
President Ilham Aliyev completed his two-day official visit to Pakistan, during which he held meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. They discussed various areas of mutual interest and bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Azerbaijan. According to the foreign ministry, both leaders reaffirmed the strategic partnership between their countries, emphasizing their confidence in close security and defense cooperation. This marks the beginning of a new strategic roadmap for further strengthening bilateral relations.Additionally, they praised the trilateral summit involving Pakistan, Turkey, and Azerbaijan as a promising start to a new era of collaboration. This summit is seen as a vital step towards fostering stronger regional alliances and cooperation.
Welcoming the President of Azerbaijan, Asif Ali Zardari termed the bilateral relations between the two countries as excellent and highlighted the great potential for further improving ties in various areas of mutual interest. He emphasized the need for more regular engagements between the people and businessmen of Pakistan and Azerbaijan to cement bilateral ties.
The President of Pakistan highlighted the importance of the Gwadar port, noting that Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan could benefit from it to promote regional trade, connectivity, and tourism, thereby bringing shared economic prosperity to the region.
Speaking on the occasion, President Ilham Aliyev stated the need to promote business-to-business relations to enhance economic ties. He added that Pakistan and Azerbaijan could also explore the possibility of working together in the renewable energy sector.
The visit concluded on a positive note, reflecting strengthened ties and shared aspirations for enhanced cooperation across multiple sectors between Pakistan and Azerbaijan. It appears that a new strategic partnership has been further consolidated, and the recent visit of President Ilham Aliyev has opened a window of opportunities for both countries, which share strategic relations.
Moreover, rapidly changing socio-economic, geopolitical, and geostrategic realities and challenges in the South Caucasus, Black Sea, Red Sea, and Middle East have reinvigorated both sides to foster mutual bilateral relations. According to reliable diplomatic sources, mutual consensus has been further enhanced on the North-South Corridor, greater regional connectivity, socio-economic integration, public-private cooperation, investment, pharmaceuticals, textiles, food and energy security, and military cooperation between the two sides.
In this regard, the signing of several agreements and MoUs during the visit vividly reflected the robust cooperation and leadership-level dialogue between the two countries. Pakistan and Azerbaijan agreed to enhance bilateral investment levels up to $2 billion in mutually beneficial projects. At a joint press conference with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev after witnessing the signing of agreements and MoUs in diverse areas, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stated, “We have discussed an initial figure of $2 billion of investment in mutually beneficial projects.”
Possibilities for further enhancing bilateral trade through joint cooperation and joint investments were also thoroughly discussed. The bilateral investment volume of less than $100 million does not reflect the strength of our brotherhood and friendship in the field of joint investment in mutually beneficial areas.
Prime Minister Shehbaz termed the holding of the climate summit COP29 in Baku as a significant international event for all developing countries, including Pakistan. He hoped that COP29 would deliver on climate change-related issues for developing countries like Pakistan.
Diplomatic circles in the capital termed President Aliyev's support for Pakistan’s just cause on Kashmir as a true sign of brotherhood and political understanding between the two sides. Moreover, Ilham’s labeling of people-to-people connections as a big asset is a sign of support for each other on every international issue.
Before the visit, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Samir Sharifov, arrived in Pakistan and held meetings with various ministers, including the Ministers of Energy (Power and Petroleum), and called on Federal Minister for Commerce Jam Kamal Khan. This clearly demonstrated the government of Pakistan's dedication to forging robust economic relations with other nations.
Undoubtedly, Pakistan attaches great importance to its relationship with Azerbaijan. Both sides should work jointly to advance their cooperation in various sectors, including tourism, transport, energy security, and defense, although this requires additional efforts.
The two countries are taking measures to increase bilateral investment, especially in the energy sector. They will also enhance parliamentary exchanges, strengthen cultural cooperation, and promote people-to-people contacts, including between students, academia, businessmen, and tourists.
It is pertinent to mention that at the SCO summit, Sharif proposed the establishment of tripartite institutional mechanisms in economic and investment areas to further strengthen cooperation among the three nations.
Azerbaijan was particularly interested in investing in the mineral, oil, and gas sectors. It focused on the oil and gas exploration sector and aimed to expand investments in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) sector as well.
It is predicted that the recent visit of President Ilham Aliyev will further boost bilateral ties between the countries, with discussions on increasing textile exports and promoting the IT sector. This would represent a significant investment push by the government of Pakistan.
In summary, Pakistan has special historic, cultural, social, political, and diplomatic relationships with Azerbaijan, which extend beyond bilateral diplomatic domains. For centuries, the people of both countries have visited, interacted, and carried caravans of human values, ethnic diversity, education, commerce, and, above all, mutual respect and trust.
Furthermore, the finalization, operationalization, and channeling of an early conclusion of the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) and Bilateral Transit Trade Agreement (BTTA) is necessary to further streamline and systematize the bilateral relations between the two countries.
There are vast opportunities in diverse fields such as the economy, investment, joint ventures, special economic free zones, CPEC, oil and gas energy cooperation, agricultural cooperation (duties on rice have been removed by the Azerbaijani government, leading to a constant rise in rice exports from Pakistan), infrastructure development, especially in the newly liberated areas of Karabakh, dairy cooperation, hybrid seeds, climate change cooperation (especially after COP29), hydropower energy generation, health, vaccines, science and technology, space sciences, education, tourism, the formation of sustainable supply chains, software, ICT, fertilizer, textiles, pharmaceuticals, sugar, surgical plants, SMEs, micro-financing, women empowerment and entrepreneurship, insurance companies, and last but not least, military cooperation/production between two strategic partners.
The ease of travel between the two countries, the institutionalization of an easy visa policy, mutual cooperation in civil aviation, and business and people-to-people cooperation would bring the desired goals of greater socio-economic cooperation, banking and finance integration, trans-regional connectivity, energy and food cooperation, and above all, metals and mining and infrastructure development between the two sides.
There is huge scope for Pakistan's private sector and companies to make investments in Azerbaijan’s economy, including infrastructure development, smart living, smart cities, green energy, digitalization, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, big data, community development, SMEs, micro-financing, handcrafts, marble, cement, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, horticulture, fishing, public health, vaccines, disaster management, money markets, and last but not least, aviation, tourism, banking, Islamic banking, education (with dual degrees), modern farming, dairy, renewables, etc. Pakistani businessmen and investors must seize this opportunity to invest in Azerbaijan.
Close liaison between tourism operating agencies, tour operators, ministries of culture, tourism, history, and civil aviation of both sides would be pivotal in further enhancing bilateral tourism cooperation. The corporate sector of Karachi, Lahore, medical colleges/doctors, the film industry, and sports organizations would play an important role in the future. New trends like the Nomad visa should also be promoted to attract more tourists from both sides. Furthermore, close cooperation between the media, film, social media, education, culture, and people-to-people contacts would be greatly beneficial for both countries and the private sector.
(If you possess specialized knowledge and wish to contribute, please reach out to us at opinions@news.az).
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