The statement of Mr. Ahsan Iqbal clearly expresses that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is pivotal for both Pakistan and China. It is a $ 46 billion project, which will connect Chinese province of Xinjiang with Pakistani port of Gwadar through the land route.
Pakistan has been for at least four decades a major theatre of operations in the global struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for dominance in the Muslim world. The stakes for both regional powers are high given that Pakistan borders on Iran; shares with the Islamic republic the restless region of Baluchistan that potentially allows Saudi Arabia and Iran to stir the pot in each other’s backyard; and is home to the world’s largest Shiite minority viewed by the kingdom as an Iranian fifth wheel.
CommandEleven’s briefing paper on the terrorism threat to CPEC — mapping BLA, TTP, and other groups targeting Chinese infrastructure and workers across Pakistan.
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the G7 countries has threatened Pakistan with sanctions if it “fails to comply with necessary actions against terrorism” (Corr,2017). It has, rather magnanimously, given Pakistan three months’ time to comply or else face the music.
After a lapse of almost two decades, former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar returned to Kabul with a fair degree of pomp and show last week, as bystanders were neither jubilant nor fearful. Some recalled his rocket-ridden tactics which obliterated Kabul.
India never paid much attention to Gilgit-Baltistan or even claimed it along with Kashmir, so much so that the world did not even know that the ‘Kashmir dispute’ included the region of Gilgit-Baltistan, it was thought to be just the Kashmir valley which was claimed by both countries. Indian claim on Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively recent development because it feels threatened by increasing Chinese influence and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor CPEC.
This Haqqani Network, consisting of Husain Haqqani, Christine Fair and Bruce Riedel, operates outside Pakistan to damage and weaken Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence structure.
The past couple of years have been marked by dramatic geopolitical changes triggered by the onset of the New Cold War, and while events such as the spree of urban terrorism popularly known as “Euromaidan” and Russia’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria are well known, there are other major shifts which have yet to generate considerable public attention but have been no less consequential.
This new ‘wave of terror’ has transpired just as the country is poised to make its debut as a global trade destination. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor has been progressing satisfactorily, foreign investment has been rapidly multiplying and Pakistanis have never been this hopeful about the future before.
Moscow will host six-party talks about Afghanistan on 15 February, with Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Iran, India, and naturally Russia expected to be represented. Moreover, Zamir Kabulov – thought of as being the leader of the “Islamophile” South Asian faction in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – extended an invitation to the US as well, though stipulating that it should first be “ready to work constructively with regional powers” and “determine what they are planning to do in Afghanistan.”
