Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry on Monday said Presidents of five countries, Prime Ministers of three countries, Deputy Prime Minister of one country and Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan would participate in ECO summit on March 1 in Islamabad.

He expressed these views after chairing the meeting of ECO countries senior Officials from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

To a question, he said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will chair the 13th ECO summit. He said that Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan will lead his country delegation at the summit, because he was involved in energy and other connectivity projects. He said ahead of the summit the Foreign Ministers meeting would be held today Tuesday.

He said the theme of the Summit was “Connectivity for Regional Prosperity”. He said cooperation in energy, infrastructure, transport connectivity and trade fields will bring development in the region, improve competitiveness and usher prosperity in the region.

He said that Pakistan has always given importance to its trade relations with the ECO countries and desires to significantly raise the volume of its trade with the member states, he added.

Chaudhry said that ECO Vision 2025 is an important document which would steer the Organization and serve as a roadmap for the success of the Organization in the coming years. He said that CPEC is basically project between Pakistan and China but its benefits will not remained limited to two countries, it will benefit entire region. He said through China Central Asian States (CAS’s) can be connected. While responding to a question he said that without peace and stability in Afghanistan route to CAS’s can not be opened. He said Pakistan is facing instability from Afghanistan.

On Pak-Afghan tension, he said that Pakistan wants peace and stability in Afghanistan and hope that Afghanistan will not allow to use its territory against Pakistan. On India’s using proxy to Afghanistan, Chaudhry said that Pakistan Pakistan’s following the agenda and policy of peaceful relation with neighborhood and following that policy with Afghanistan and Afghanistan. With emerging response on it new ways will emerge. He said that Pakistan also taken action against terrorist groups successfully.