Russia Endorses Pakistan’s Entry Into Shanghai Cooperation Organization

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Russia Endorses Pakistan’s Entry Into Shanghai Cooperation Organization

By Palash R. Ghosh | November 7, 2011

Russia has officially supported Pakistan’s bid to gain full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Founded by China in 2011, SCO is an intergovernmental security organization that also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as members.

During a meeting of the SCO in St, Petersburg, Russia, Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin following an address made at a conference by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani.

Putin also endorsed Gilani’s proposals for enacting various trade and energy projects between the two countries. Among other things, Russia will finance – to the tune of $500-million—the CASA-1000 project which will provide power transmission from Turkmenistan Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Putin and Gilani also reportedly discussed other important topics, including battling against terrorism and extremism.


“Pakistan is important for us in trade and economy and it is an important partner in South Asia and in Islamic world,” Putin told Gilani.


The Russian Premier also offered to help expand and upgrade various power plants in Pakistan.

Earlier at the SCO meeting, Gilani met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to discuss strengthening bilateral economic, defense and energy ties between Islamabad and Beijing.

In addition, Gilani lobbied for more investment in Pakistan by Chinese corporations.

In May, Gilani told Chinese media that he wanted bilateral trade between the two countries to reach $15 billion within two years (up from $9 billion at present).

According to China’s Commerce Ministry, at the of 2010, Chinese companies signed contracts with Pakistan worth a total of $19.9 billion; China's direct investment in Pakistan reached $1.36 billion dollars.

Pakistan and China have enjoyed diplomatic relations for 60 years and regard each other as crucial partners to defend against their common enemy, India, in Asian affairs.

Russia Endorses Pakistan

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China welcomes Pak-Russia’s candid relations

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is China’s best friend internationally secondly to Russia, said Professor Zhou Rong, Chief of South Asia Bureau of Guang Ming Daily of China. Speaking at a roundtable discussion organized by the Institute of Regional Studies here on Thursday, he maintained that China would welcome improvement of relationship between its two best friends.

He argued that since India had become a world sought-after country and was gravitating towards the US, the Russians would also be interested in mending fences with the Pakistanis. Prof Zhou was of the view that Pakistan’s fears of Russia were misplaced. He said that Russia’s reach has shrunk significantly after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and that it is now far away from Pakistan to threaten it militarily. Prof. Zhou maintained that Pakistan is emotionally pro-China; but that it is psychologically pro-US because of the long-standing institutional relationship it has enjoyed with the latter. He attributed the good relations between the two countries partly to the fact that many among Pakistani elite had studied or stayed in the US and still preferred sending their children to the US for studies.

He said though China is never bothered by Pakistan’s relationships with the US and that it actually benefited from them in developing its own relations with America. He elaborated that US wants to utilize Pakistan in the war against terrorism, restrict Pakistan’s growing religious radicalism, and reform Pakistan to make it a liberal secular democracy. He added that Pakistan could not become a secular democracy because of its strong Islamic roots, and that it could not become a theocracy ruled by Taliban either because of the modern undercurrents in its society. He cautioned against the Pak-US relationship being based on incongruent and at times divergent interests.

Prof. Zhou said that Pak-China relationship is exceptional because it is instinctive. He compared it to the relationship between two brothers who have to come to each other’s help instinctively He added that Pakistan would have to proactively persuade Chinese government to initiate the rail-link between the two countries. He also emphasized the need for enhanced Chinese language training for Pakistanis for the improvement of the relations.

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