Daily Times

Two phone calls inside four months between the Pakistani prime minister and the Russian president make for as decisive a diplomatic shift as this region has seen since the Cold War. And, contrary to popular perception, PM Imran Khan and President Putin have been able to cultivate a lot more common ground than just their positions on Islamophobia. Kremlin substantially changed the nature of international debate on what is after all a very sensitive subject when President Putin said on record that insulting the holy prophet (PBUH) did not count as an expression of artistic freedom but instead amounted to a serious “violation of religious freedom.” But that wasn’t all that made PM Khan pick up the phone and give him a call.

Much of both conversations revolved around Afghanistan, and the desperate need to restore aid to that country as well as get the Americans to unfreeze close to $10 billion of their central bank’s money in foreign countries. A lot has changed since the so-called anti-Soviet jihad in that country. This time, Russia was among the countries that helped bring the Taliban to the table for the endgame of the war-on-terror. Moscow has also been very vocal, just like Islamabad, about the need to keep a lid on violence in Afghanistan following the takeover of the Taliban, and realises that lasting peace would just not be possible if Kabul is completely bankrupt right at the start of the new government.

More importantly from Pakistan’s point of view, though, PM Khan personally assured the Russian head of state that we are committed to the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline Project. Considering our gas needs and Russia’s expertise in exporting the commodity, there’s a lot that can be worked on. But Islamabad will have to be very careful, because getting closer to Moscow means more distance with the US. Khan and Putin will meet early next month in Beijing, at the winter Olympics, which will get considerable attention because they’re gracing an event boycotted by most of the west. And Russia is also courting considerable controversy by opposing Nato’s planned expansion into eastern Europe and central Asia, with talk of possible war over Ukraine, which will again divide the world into different camps. Islamabad should spend the time between now and the meeting with Putin to do its homework properly, because such ties are not things that you can make and break as the weather changes. *