DR.

SANAWAR IQBAL (AC-IRS)-49TH CTP Page |1

PAKISTAN AFFAIRS
Lecture 5

DR. SANAWAR IQBAL

B.Sc (PU), B.D.S (PMC), M.S HEALTH ADMINISTRATION (IAS, PU)

PMS 2015

AD MOD 2019

DEPUTY ACCOUNT OFFICER 2020

ELECTION OFFICER 2020

CSS 2020

AC IRS

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LECTURE 5:

 Pakistan and Changing Regional Apparatus

 Regional Cooperation Organizations (SAARC,ECO,SCO) and the Role of Pakistan

Pakistan and Changing Regional Apparatus

Geographic location of Pakistan-Significance

 Area of 881,913 km2 (340,509 sq mi), approximately equal to the combined land areas of
France and the United Kingdom.
 It is the 33rd-largest nation by total area.
 Pakistan has a 1,046 km (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the
south.
 Land borders of 6,774 km (4,209 mi) in total:
 2,430 km (1,510 mi) with Afghanistan
 523 km (325 mi) with China
 2,912 km (1,809 mi) with India  909 km (565 mi) with Iran.
 It shares a marine border with Oman
 Separated from Tajikistan by the cold, narrow Wakhan Corridor.

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 Pakistan occupies a geopolitically important location at the crossroads of South

Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

Changing Regional Apparatus

1. Rising China
i. US-China Power show in South Asia
ii. China-India rivalry in the region
iii. China as revisionist power in Indo-Pacific iv. One Belt One Road (OBOR)
2. Hegemonic aims of India
i. Indo-Pak rivalry
ii. US-India bonhomie
iii. Indian influence on small states e.g Nepal, Sri Lanka , Bangladesh, Bhutan iv.
Kashmir Issue
3. Afghanistan Quagmire
i. Increasing Indian influence
ii. US forces exit from Afghanistan
iii. Interests of Taliban iv. Porous Af-Pak Border
4. Iran Dilemma
i. US-Iran age old tensions
ii. Saudi Aarabia -Iran discord
iii. Pak-Iran border issues iv. India Factor
5. CARs and Pakistan
i. Energy resource

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ii. Land locked

iii. Strategic importance of CARs iv. Trade

Challenges for Pakistan in Changing Regional Apparatus

I. Security concerns at borders
II. Internal security dilemma
III. Expanding Indian influence in the region
IV. Nuclear security V. Trust deficit
VI. Kashmir issue
VII. Indian propaganda
VIII. Creating balance b/w Pak-US & Pak-China relations
IX. Balancing Pak-Iran & Pak-Saudia relations X. Middle East Crisis

How Pakistan can play a pro-active role in Changing South Asia?

I. Trade
II. Building national narrative against terrorism
III. Exposing India on international platforms- lobbying
IV. Arranging table talks among Muslim countries-Role of OIC V. Strengthening border
security
VI. Countering Propaganda- social media, electronic media, seminars, international
events
VII. Balancing relations with all neighbours
VIII. Sponsoring students of south Asian countries

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IX. Tourism
X. Investment in developmental programs in South Asia

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

 The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is the regional
intergovernmental organization and geopolitical union of states in South Asia.
 Its member states are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
 The SAARC comprises 3% of the world's area, 21% of the world's population and 4.21%
(US$3.67 trillion) of the global economy, as of 2019.

Establishment:
 The idea of co-operation among South Asian Countries was discussed in three
conferences: the Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi in April 1947; the
Baguio Conference in the Philippines in May 1950; and the Colombo Powers
Conference held in Sri Lanka in April 1954.
 In the ending years of the 1970s, the seven inner South Asian nations that included
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka agreed upon
the creation of a trade bloc and to provide a platform for the people of South Asia to
work together in a spirit of friendship, trust, and understanding.
 President Ziaur Rahman later addressed official letters to the leaders of the countries
of the South Asia, presenting his vision for the future of the region and the
compelling arguments for region.

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 The officials of the foreign ministries of the seven countries met for the first time in
Colombo in April 1981.
 The Bangladeshi proposal was promptly endorsed by Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and
the Maldives but India and Pakistan were sceptical initially.
 The Indian concern was the proposal's reference to the security matters in South Asia
and feared that Rahman's proposal for a regional organisation might provide an
opportunity for new smaller neighbours to re-internationalize all bilateral issues and
to join with each other to form an opposition against India.
 Pakistan assumed that it might be an Indian strategy to organize the other South
Asian countries against Pakistan and ensure a regional market for Indian products,
thereby consolidating and further strengthening India's economic dominance in the
region.
 Series of diplomatic consultations headed by Bangladesh between South Asian U.N.
representatives at the UN headquarters in New York, from September 1979 to 1980,
it was agreed that Bangladesh would prepare the draft of a working paper for
discussion among the foreign secretaries of South Asian countries.
 In 1983, the international conference held in Dhaka by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the foreign ministers of the inner seven countries adopted the Declaration on South
Asian Association Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and formally launched the
Integrated Programme of Action (IPA) initially in five agreed areas of
cooperation namely, Agriculture; Rural Development; Telecommunications; Meteorology;
and Health and Population Activities.
 The union was established in Dhaka with Kathmandu being the union's
secretariatgeneral.
 The first SAARC summit was held in Dhaka on 7–8 December 1985 and hosted by the
President of Bangladesh Hussain Ershad.
 The declaration signed by King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuk, President of
Pakistan Zia-ul-Haq, Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, King of Nepal Birendra Shah,
President of Sri Lanka JR Jayewardene, and President of Maldives Maumoon Gayoom.

Member States:

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

Observer States

Australia, China, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Mauritius, Myanmar, South Korea, and the
United States

Secretariat

SAARC Secretariat was established in Kathmandu on 16 January 1987.

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SAARC Conundrum

 Lasting peace and prosperity in South Asia has been elusive because of the various ongoing
conflicts in the region.
 Political dialogue is often conducted on the margins of SAARC meetings which have refrained
from interfering in the internal matters of its member states.
 During the 12th and 13th SAARC summits, extreme emphasis was laid upon greater
cooperation between the SAARC members to fight terrorism.
 The 19th SAARC (15–16 November 2016 ) summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan was called
off as India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan decided to boycott it due to a terrorist attack
on an army camp in Uri.
 It was for the first time that four countries boycotted a SAARC summit, leading to its
cancellation.

South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA)

o The SAFTA was envisaged primarily as the first step towards the transition to a
South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) leading subsequently towards a Customs
Union, Common Market and the Economic Union. o The SAFTA Agreement was
signed on 6 January 2004 during Twelfth SAARC Summit held in Islamabad,
Pakistan.
o The Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2006, and the Trade
Liberalization Programme commenced from 1 July 2006.
o Under this agreement, SAARC members will bring their duties down to 20
percent by 2009. o In 2012 the SAARC exports increased substantially to $354.6
billion from $206.7 billion in 2009.
o Imports too increased from $330 billion to $602 billion over the same period.
But the intra-SAARC trade amounts to just a little over 1% of SAARC's GDP. o In
contrast to SAARC, in ASEAN (which is actually smaller than SAARC in terms of the
size of the economy) the intra-bloc trade stands at 10% of its GDP. o The SAFTA was
envisaged to gradually move towards the South Asian Economic Union, but the
current intra-regional trade and investment relation are not encouraging and it may
be difficult to achieve this target.
o The SAARC intra-regional trade stands at just five percent on the share of
intraregional trade in overall trade in South Asia. Similarly, foreign direct
investment is also dismal. The intra-regional FDI flow stands at around four
percent of the total foreign investment.
o The Asian Development Bank has estimated that inter-regional trade in SAARC
region possessed the potential of shooting up agricultural exports by $14 billion
per year from existing level of $8 billion to $22 billion. The study by Asian
Development Bank states that against the potential average SAARC intraregional
trade of $22 billion per year, the actual trade in South Asia has been only around

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$8 billion. The uncaptured potential for intra-regional trade is therefore $14

billion per year.

SAARC & Role of Pakistan

 Increasing trade
 Bridging social gulf
 Connecting South Asia with CARs
 Boosting Tourism
 Enhanced activities under CPEC

Economic Cooperation Organization

 The Economic Cooperation Organization or ECO is an Asian political and economic
intergovernmental organization which was founded in 1985 in Tehran by the leaders of Iran,
Pakistan, and Turkey.
 The nature of the ECO is that it consists of predominantly Muslim-majority states as it is a
trade bloc for the Central Asian states connected to the Mediterranean through Turkey, to the
Persian Gulf via Iran, and to the Arabian sea via Pakistan.
 The current framework of the ECO expresses itself mostly in the form of bilateral agreements
and arbitration mechanisms between individual and fully sovereign member states.
 This makes the ECO similar to ASEAN in that it is an organisation that has its own offices and
bureaucracy for implementation of trade amongst sovereign member states.
 The ECO's secretariat and cultural department are located in Iran, its economic bureau is in
Turkey and its scientific bureau is situated in Pakistan.

Objective:

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 It provides a platform to discuss ways to improve development and promote trade

and investment opportunities.
 The objective is to establish a single market for goods and services, much like the
European Union.

History
 The Economic Cooperation Organization was the successor organisation of what was
the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD), founded in 1964, which ended
activities in 1979.
 In 1985 Iran, Pakistan and Turkey joined to form the ECO.
 By the fall of 1992, the ECO expanded to include seven new members; Afghanistan,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan an d Uzbekistan.
 The date of the expansion to its present strength, 28 November, is referred to as "ECO
Day". The status and power of the ECO is growing.

Challenges.

 The member states are lacking appropriate infrastructure and institutions which the
Organization is primarily seeking to develop, to make full use of the available resources in
the region and provide sustainable development for the member nations.

Trade Agreements
o
The Economic Cooperation Organisation Trade Agreement (ECOTA) was signed on 17 July
2003 in Islamabad.
o
ECO Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) is a new organization for trade promotion
among member states located in Iran (2009).

Principles of ECO

1. Sustainable economic development of Member States.

2. Progressive removal of trade barriers and promotion of intraregional trade; the Greater
role of ECO region in the growth of world trade; Gradual integration of the economies
of the Member States with the world economy.

3. Development of transport & communications infrastructure linking the Member States

with each other and with the outside world.

4. Economic liberalization and privatization.

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5. Mobilization and utilization of ECO region's material resources.

6. Effective utilization of the agricultural and industrial potentials of ECO region.

7. Regional cooperation for drug abuse control, ecological and environmental protection
and strengthening of historical and cultural ties among the peoples of the ECO region.

8. Mutually beneficial cooperation with regional and international organizations.

9. Sovereign equality of the Member States and mutual advantage.

10. Linking of national economic, development plans with ECO's immediate and longterm
objectives to the extent possible.

11. Joint efforts to gain freer access to markets outside the ECO region for the raw
materials and finished products of the Member States.

12. Effective utilization of ECO institutions, agreements and cooperative arrangements with
other regional and international organizations including multilateral financial
institutions.

13. Common endeavors to develop a harmonized approach for participation in regional and
global arrangements.

14. Realization of economic cooperation strategy; and Exchanges in educational, scientific,

technical and cultural fields.

Members:

Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Pakistan, Tajikistan,Turkey,

Turkmanistan, Uzbekistan
Observer states:

• Northern Cyprus

• Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

Functions of ECO

Activities of ECO are conducted through directorates under the supervision of

Secretary-General and his Deputies which considered and evolve projects and programs of
mutual benefit in the fields of:

I. Trade and Investment

II. Transport and Telecommunications
III. Energy, Minerals and Environment
IV. Agriculture, Industry and Tourism

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V. Human Resources & Sustainable Development

VI. Project & Economic Research and Statistics

ECO & Pakistan:

I. Security Cooperation
II. Economic cooperation
III. Developmental ventures
IV. Cooperation in technology
V. Regional dispute settlement

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

 The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), or Shanghai Pact, is a Eurasian
political, economic, and security alliance.
 Military exercises are also regularly conducted among members to promote
cooperation and coordination against terrorism and other external threats,
and to maintain regional peace and stability.
 The SCO is the largest regional organisation in the world in terms of
geographical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian
continent and nearly half of the human population.

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Formation

 The creation SCO was announced on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai, China by the leaders
of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
 The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Charter, formally establishing the
organization, was signed in June 2002 and entered into force on 19 September
2003.

MEMBERS

 China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazekhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan

 The original five members, with the exclusion of Uzbekistan, were previously members
of the Shanghai Five group, founded on 26 April 1996.
 Since then, the organization has expanded its membership to eight states when India
and Pakistan joined SCO as full members on 9 June 2017 at a summit in Astana,
Kazakhstan.

Observer states

Afghanistan, Belarus, Russia, Mongolia

HSC

The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO, it meets once a year
and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organisation.

History

 The Shanghai Five grouping was created 26 April 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on
Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai, China by the heads of states of
China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
 On 24 April 1997, the same countries signed the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces
in Border Regions in a meeting in Moscow, Russia.
 On 20 May 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Chinese leader Jiang Zemin
signed a declaration on a "multipolar world".
 Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Chinese
President Jiang Zemin, Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, and Tajik President Emomali
Rahmon, at one time the leaders of the Shanghai Five.
 Subsequent annual summits of the Shanghai Five group occurred in Almaty,
Kazakhstan in 1998, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 1999, and in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in
2000.
 At the Dushanbe summit, members agreed to "oppose intervention in other countries'
internal affairs on the pretexts of 'humanitarianism' and 'protecting human rights;' and

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support the efforts of one another in safeguarding the five countries' national
independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and social stability."
 In 2001, the annual summit returned to Shanghai. There the five member nations first
admitted Uzbekistan in the Shanghai Five mechanism (thus transforming it into the
Shanghai Six).
 Then all six heads of state signed on 15 June 2001 the Declaration of Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation, praising the role played thus far by the Shanghai Five
mechanism and aiming to transform it to a higher level of cooperation.
 In June 2002, the heads of the SCO member states met in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
There they signed the SCO Charter which expounded on the organisation's purposes,
principles, structures and forms of operation, and established it in international law.
 In July 2005, at the summit in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, with representatives of India,
Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan attending an SCO summit for the first time, the president
of the host country, Nursultan Nazarbayev, greeted the guests in words that had never
been used before in any context: "The leaders of the states sitting at this negotiation
table are representatives of half of humanity".
 By 2007 the SCO had initiated over twenty large-scale projects related to
transportation, energy and telecommunications and held regular meetings of security,
military, defence, foreign affairs, economic, cultural, banking and other officials from
its member states.
 In July 2015 in Ufa, Russia, the SCO decided to admit India and Pakistan as full
members. Both signed the memorandum of obligations in June 2016 in Tashkent,
Uzbekistan, thereby starting the formal process of joining the SCO as full members.
 On 9 June 2017, at a summit in Astana, India and Pakistan officially joined SCO as full
members.
 The SCO has established relations with the United Nations in 2004 (where it is an
observer in the General Assembly), Commonwealth of Independent States in 2005,
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2005, the Collective Security
Treaty Organization in 2007, the Economic Cooperation Organization in 2007, the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2011, the Conference on Interaction
and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in 2014, and the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in 2015,African Union in
2018.
 The SCO is widely regarded as the "alliance of the East", due to its growing centrality in
Asia-Pacific, and has been the primary security pillar of the region.[11] In 2017, SCO's
eight full members account for approximately half of the world's population, a quarter
of the world's GDP, and about 80% of Eurasia's landmass.

Activities:

Security Cooperation
Military Cooperation

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Economic Cooperation
Cultural Cooperation

SCO & Pakistan

i. Security cooperation in region
ii. Military exercises
iii. Economic link iv. Cultural ties
v. Educational bridges

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