Special Representative of Pakistan: Sanctions against Iran have caused problems for the neighbors.
“Asif Ali Khan Durrani” as the main speaker of the international conference titled “Peace and security in the region and beyond: Pakistan’s role” in Islamabad said: Pakistan’s relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran are compared to our tense and problematic relations with India. And Afghanistan is reassuring.
The two-day international conference ‘Peace and Security in the Region and Beyond: Pakistan’s Role’, hosted by the Islamabad Institute of Political Studies (ISSI) and in partnership with the United States Peace Institute, opened today in the capital of Pakistan.
Experts from different countries, diplomats, and foreign policy elites, including Seyed Mohammad Kazem Sajjadpour, a professor at the Faculty of International Relations and the former Deputy Minister of Education and Research of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, are among the most important participants in this two-day international event in Islamabad.
Referring to the challenges and opportunities facing that country in the region and under the shadow of international developments, Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan Asif Durrani said: Today, we have very difficult relations with Afghanistan, and at the same time, Pakistan’s interaction with India is still tense.
Special Representative of Pakistan: Sanctions against Iran have caused problems for the neighbors
Emphasizing the importance of Pakistan’s strategic and long-standing relations with China, he added: Islamabad’s bilateral relations with Tehran are very favorable and free of any problems, but the sanctions against Iran have caused its neighbors to face problems.
This Pakistani official said: Sanctions against Iran are like indirect sanctions against Pakistan because despite unilateral sanctions, we are not able to expand trade relations with our neighbor and Pakistan’s exports have not increased either.
Durrani, who traveled to Tehran in the middle of September this year with the aim of bilateral and regional consultations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, said: Peace and stability in Afghanistan is important for the neighbors, and if the Taliban claims to establish peace in this country, its fruits should be seen on our common borders.
The former ambassador of Pakistan in Iran stated: Islamabad was once considered a non-NATO ally of the United States, but despite our close cooperation, America and the West treated Pakistan differently and even put us on the list of travel and visa restrictions.
He called the terrorist attacks on the common border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially the challenge of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban terrorist group, a serious obstacle in the relations between the two countries, and demanded from the Taliban government that Kabul should return the members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban group to Pakistan.