ARTICLES OF THE DAY

April 1, 2021
TOM FOWDY, RUSSIA TODAY ................................................................................................................................ 2

INAM UL HAQUE, EXPRESS TRIBUNE...................................................................................................................... 4

IMRAN JAN, EXPRESS TRIBUNE .............................................................................................................................. 6

NEIL CLARK, RUSSIA TODAY ................................................................................................................................... 8

F.S. AIJAZUDDIN, DAWN ...................................................................................................................................... 10

CÉLESTINE BOHLEN, CFR ...................................................................................................................................... 12

CENTER FOR PREVENTIVE ACTION, CFR ................................................................................................................ 14

MARC LEVINSON, NEW YORK TIMES .................................................................................................................... 15

DR. USMAN W. CHOHAN, DAILY NEWS ................................................................................................................ 17

AMBASSADOR (R) TARIQ OSMAN HYDER, THE NATION ....................................................................................... 19


A leak from a Wuhan lab or a US military one? As the US and
China trade barbs over Covid’s origin, the world waits for answers
Tom Fowdy, Russia Today
y rejecting WHO’s
conclusion the virus
B came from animals,
the US is politicizing
the
further
geopolitical,
pandemic to
its
anti-China
agenda. No theory will ever be
good enough for Washington
unless it declares Beijing guilty.
How did Covid-19 originate?
Where did it come from? We’ll
probably never know, the
World Health Organization
(WHO) has said, in a much-
anticipated report following a
field trip to Wuhan, China,
where the virus first presented
itself to the world just over a
year ago.
The study, carried out by WHO
and Chinese experts, concluded
that the claim it may have
leaked from a laboratory was
highly unlikely and said the
virus had probably jumped
from bats to humans via another
intermediary
animal.Predictably, not all were
satisfied with these results. The
United States, as part of its new
“coalition building” efforts
against China, gathered
together a group of 12 other
countries and issued a joint
statement criticizing the report
for a lack of transparency,
accusing Beijing of depriving
the WHO researchers of access
to important data and
demanding a “full-independent
inquiry” into the virus’s
origins.
Under pressure,
Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the
Tedros
head of WHO, said that
although a lab leak was the least
likely cause, more research was
needed.
While the Biden administration
has dropped former president
Trump’s racially charged
rhetoric of “the China virus,”
the fundamental mode of its
approach on Covid-19
continues to be politicized for
geopolitical gain. It merely
represents a nicer, “mask on”
version of Trump and, as with
most of Washington’s foreign
policy, a rebranding of it as
opposed to a clear break.
With politics taking precedence
above sanctions, and the
obvious conclusion that an
“independent” inquiry never
will happen, nor would Beijing
agree to it, one must conclude
that these calls are meaningless
posturing and that the US and
its allies will never be satisfied
with any other outcome other
than one which places China in
the dock and declares her guilty
of pandemic crimes against
humanity.
2
The anti-China narrative
surrounding the pandemic
believes that Beijing ultimately
has something grave to hide
about its origins, and covered it
up. Therefore, it ought to be
subject to a “blame game” and
held geopolitically accountable
for it; all of which conveniently
advances US foreign policy
goals.
It is, of course, a simplistic take,
one which deliberately
obscures the fact that China was
confronted with an unknown
virus, spreading
fasasymptomatically and
discreetly. Yet the pushers of
the “China guilty” conspiracy
assume that the country had
complete knowledge of it in
advance and understood its
severity.
This has led to a proliferation of
unproven theories about the
origin of the virus in order to
sustain the idea that Beijing
ought to be “responsible” for
the global disaster. The Trump
administration pushed this idea
to the max, claiming without
evidence that the virus was the
product of a leak from a Wuhan
laboratory.
Even with him no longer in the
White House, this idea has
stubbornly persisted in the

mainstream media. And, while
the Biden administration is not
being so direct, the repeated
and pre-emptive dismissals of
the WHO’s report are designed
to tactfully play to the public
imagination, casting doubt and
uncertainty. This is bad-faith
politics.
In light of such, it has been
widely ignored by just about
everyone that the WHO
observed that its report was
botched not so much by
political pressures within
China, but from outside it too.
The WHO has repeatedly been
attacked for being favourable
towards Beijing, which creates
a climate of distrust and
dismissal towards any scientific
findings which do not reflect a
mood of guilt, cover up and
deceit. It has been made a
venting point for public anger.
Thus, even for Biden, the
theory that Covid-19 most
likely has a zoonotic origin falls
on deaf ears, because it fails to
satisfy the need for smearing
China’s reputation and
advancing US foreign policy.
The strategy is to cast doubt for
the sake of doubt as opposed to
looking at the facts to reach
scientific conclusions,
especially if they exonerate
Beijing.
So, what now? Nothing, most
likely. After a year of being
subject to non-stop hatred and
scapegoating, why would
Beijing trust a US-led initiative
to investigate it further? China
called for a probe into the
origins of Covid-19 to shift its
focus to other countries –
including to a US military
laboratory, at Fort Detrick,
Maryland, that it has repeatedly
blamed for earlier outbreaks.
3
This is not so much about
“having something to hide” as it
is a proportional response to the
times we live in. There will be
no “independent inquiry” and
those calling for it know that,
which is why the emphasis is on
rhetoric alone, to blame, to
discredit and to insinuate.
The world subsequently stands
in confusion and frustration as
the search for scientific answers
over this excoriating pandemic
are muddied by a continual
political football between
China and the West, a vicious
fight over the notion that
someone must be
“accountable” for a pandemic
which, in reality, the world
ought to be working together to
solve.

The Islamabad Security Dialogue — an appraisal
Inam Ul Haque, Express Tribune
ast week the linkage of
the first-ever
L Islamabad Security
Dialogue (ISD) was
established with the
United States thinking
about the Indo-Pakistan region,
in my Op-ed, “The Islamabad
Security Dialogue: Perspective
and Potential”. Before an
appraisal of the ISD, let us
encapsulate the essence of the
prevailing global environment
that is likely to impact the
regional milieu. Whether the
recent bonhomie between India
and Pakistan, as evidenced by
the positive steps taken by
either side, is a spur of the
moment re-orientation; a long-
awaited outcome of the Track-
II and other parleys; result of
India-Pakistan’s own security
calculus; or a subtle nudging by
the Biden administration… the
jury is still out. However, one
hopes that the reflected
positivity is genuine and
irreversible.
Serious-minded policy analysts
in India have always
recommended a détente in
Indo-Pakistan relations. The
argument — succinctly put
across in a 2017 publication,
“Dragon on Our Doorstep”,
goes like this. India cannot
militarily prevail against a
China-Pakistan combine; and
without normalising relations
with Pakistan, India cannot
realise its full potential, and
concentrate its efforts towards a
rising China. And that India has
traditionally followed
appeasement policy towards
China’s land incursions in
Ladakh and elsewhere. And
an
while Pakistan and China have
remained focused on building a
“military power”, India has
been collecting merely
“military war-withal”.
These observers also point out
that, whereas, the Pakistani
military has a “strategic”
outlook, not supplemented by
its political class, having a
“tactical” outlook; the Indian
military has a tactical outlook,
as opposed to the strategic
outlook of its
politicians/civilian leaders.
And given the strategic
importance of the One Belt One
Road (OBOR) initiative (with
CPEC as its flagship project) —
that has catapulted China under
President Xi Jinping to world
eminence — Sino-Pakistan ties
have morphed into what the
US-Israel relationship is.
Pakistan is to China what Israel
is to America.
The ISD was prominent by
China’s absence except Dr Hu
Shisheng, an academic, and the
agenda was ‘ostensibly’ set by
Dr Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan’s
national security adviser. An
4
academic by training, Dr
Yusuf’s deep involvement with
US academia and think tanks,
like the US Institute of Peace in
Washington (he was an
associate vice-president for
Asia); and some past iterations
on social media, raise some
concerns in the nationalistic
circles. Phrases like General
Bajwa’s “hand of peace in all
directions” and “burying the
past” — metaphorically at least
— are significant strands of our
future policy outlook. One
hopes that the policy calibration
stems from deep introspection
and analysis, keeping our
‘selfish national interest’
uppermost. Dr Yusuf may or
may not be our Jared Kushner.
Rapprochement on Kashmir,
while bold and out of the box;
has to vector in the aspirations
of the Kashmiri people
including the diaspora, and the
trichotomy of the India-
Pakistan-China relationship,
given the border entanglement
in the region. The recent
statement by China’s Foreign
Ministry spokesperson Zhao
Lijian encouraging bilateral
amity between India and
Pakistan notwithstanding, the
binary of Indo-Pakistan
rapprochement, leaving China
out has implications.
Likewise, the option of keeping
Kashmir on the back burner

while moving forward on ‘other
issues’, also is a slippery
notion. Kashmir remains a
‘vital/core interest’ for
Pakistan, given its emotional,
religious, psychological and
historic significance. The
religious right without due
confidence building parleys
would rock the PTI boat like no
PDM can.
Sometimes intractable and
complex issues are resolved by
time itself. Having said that, it
is not intended to not defreeze
the Kashmir issue, and find a
solution acceptable to all sides.
However, for the general public
to be supportive, both the
governments (India in
particular) shall have to prepare
grounds through confidence
building measures (CBMs) in a
sustained manner over time
with all external agents
working in harmony especially
the deep states and political
vigilantes (on the Indian side).
And these measures should be
started “from and within
Kashmir” to have an impact.
An immediate measure is the
undoing of Article 370.
Whether the RSS/Modi-led
Hindutva-inspired Indian
establishment can spring such a
coup, remains to be seen… but
seems tough at present. So,
raising expectations from the
very early and mostly cosmetic
CBMs would be naive.
If the western analysts and their
faithful local cabal are to be
believed, the US is hell-bent
upon propping up India as a
bulwark against China. The
truth is far from this truism. The
US wishes notwithstanding,
India has steadfastly refused the
US bait during the 2020 Ladakh
stand-off with China; dithered
on military cooperation (with
the potential of antagonising
China); and avoided military
pacts with the US, in an effort
to charter a course — as far as
possible — closer to its non-
alignment credentials. Yes,
India has tried to maximise its
economic and diplomatic
potential from its ‘perceived’
closeness to the US.
There are indicators that India
might balance against China
without a closer partnership
with America. It has avoided
the repeat of its reckless
‘forward policy’ that led to the
Sino-India war in 1962 over
Aksai Chin/Arunachal Pradesh,
that the Chinese call ‘’South
Tibet”.
Overall, India understands the
transactional nature of the Indo-
US relationship and the short
span of US attention. India,
under south wing bureaucracy
and Chanakya Kautilya (375-
283 BC) statecraft, is too clever
and illusive for the mandarins
of US State Department, sitting
thousands of miles away.
The related argument floated
around concerns China’s
interest in Pakistan not having
peace with India. China has
always advised Pakistan to
5
remain peacefully engaged
with India concerning “all”
issues. It understands the
implications of a nuclear war in
its backyard and the economic
potential of the region, where it
can sell its wares after the
US/European markets are
denied to it. Add to it China’s
ability to harvest
economic/mineral benefits of
Afghanistan and Central Asia if
the region is stable. In this game
of thrones, the Indian military
establishment seems
unnecessarily gung-ho and
myopic.
The world is effectively in a
new cold war between China
and the US. China’s reference
to its past humiliation by
European powers and its
present self-confidence and
national power potential,
foretells new force alignments.
By contrast, the US policy
prescriptions towards South
Asia are less developed and
betray a confusion. With the
global pivot shifting towards
Asia in general and China in
particular, more countries
(Germany a first case in point)
are hedging their bets.
Therefore, South Asia needs to
embrace the “trichotomy of
India-Pakistan-China”
allowing time and sincere
efforts to resolve issues, rather
than playing proxies for the US,
that remains embroiled in
intractable problems
domestically.

Power sharing in Afghanistan
Imran Jan, Express tribune
he Americans are
pushing for the Taliban
T and Kabul to share
power in a future
Afghanistan. That idea
is rejected by Ashraf
Ghani vehemently because in
any power sharing
arrangement, he would have to
step down as president, which
could mean the end of his
political career and even life,
depending on who you ask.
The Taliban would never share
power with whom they call a
“puppet”. They are going to go
for the kill, literally. In their
mind, they fought against the
mighty American army and
brought them to the table or
their knees, depending on who
you ask. So, why should they
accept sitting across the table
from the Afghan government,
which they can defeat more
easily? The United States has to
realise that there is less or no
return in power sharing and that
is why it needs to invest its
energy and money where there
is more return and more threat:
the support to the Taliban
against the roaring Islamic
State in Afghanistan.
While the IS is propped up by
the spoilers of peace in
Afghanistan, there may emerge
a situation where the presence
of the IS will benefit the
Taliban. And I do not mean
they would develop some sort
of an alliance. Quite the
contrary actually. Their
antagonism would create an
opportunity for the Taliban to
receive American and Western
support, pushing the current
Kabul regime into further
oblivion, or their graves,
depending on who you ask.
There is a similar history with a
potential déjà vu. At the end of
the 1980s, the US withdrew its
support from the Mujahideen
not only because the war had
ended and the Soviets had lost,
but because to America, a red
(communist) Afghanistan could
have been acceptable but not a
green (Islamic) one. They did
not want Afghanistan to be
overrun and ruled by the
Mujahideen, whom they
couldn’t always control and
who could behave irrationally.
Such unpredictable behaviour
did not go in line with the
American modus operandi of
using others to control some
distant land.
Today, the IS is potentially a
similar problem. If the US
leaves Afghanistan without
providing some assistance to
the Taliban, who have proved
themselves strong on the
battlefield, a war can emerge
between the Taliban and the IS.
Kabul’s ally of convenience,
6
namely India, has already
sneakily provided some support
to the IS with hopes of creating
shock troops checking the
power of the Taliban. That
could cook up into something
very distasteful. IS taking over
Afghanistan in the future would
be worse than what
Afghanistan has ever been. The
American fears of seeing an
Afghanistan ruled by the
Mujahideen of the yesteryear
would appear very benign
compared to an Afghanistan
infected heavily with IS.
Therefore, the most important
thing for the US is not just to
secure a guarantee from the
Taliban to not allow any
terrorist group to use Afghan
soil to plan and execute attacks
against the West but rather to
keep an alliance with them —
which has proven kinetic —
and even political credentials
given it has no Jihadist
ambitions. The Taliban only
want to free their land from the
Americans. They do not have
ambitions to carry some
extreme version of Islam to
other lands and disrupt the
status quo globally. That is
what the IS wants. The Taliban
DNA is nationalistic. They
have shown tremendous
elasticity. Recently, they
allowed girls to go to school.
 7

I must say that while there is abandon violence is to make how gigantic a task this is and
ample research and a them part of the political find their battlefield from the
compelling argument that one process and power, the Taliban past an easier struggle.
of the most effective ways to by assuming power and control
convince insurgent groups to of Afghanistan might realise

The great Covid power grab: Why world leaders’ push for a post-
WW2-style ‘Pandemic Treaty’ must be resisted
Neil Clark, Russia Today
ohnson, Macron and
J
Merkel have warned that
the world needs a
settlement to protect itself
in the wake of
Coronavirus. The
question, as ever, must be: ‘who
benefits?’ The answer, as ever,
is ‘it’s unlikely to be you.’
“Out with nationalism and
isolationism and in with
international ‘Health and
Security’!”
That’s the cry from 24 world
leaders, led by the British Prime
Minister Boris Johnson, French
President Emmanuel Macron
and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel. The call for a new
global ‘pandemic
preparedness’ treaty came in a
letter to the Daily Telegraph
and in papers across the world.
The letter uses words and
phrases such as ‘solidarity,’
‘global community,’
’international cooperation’ and
‘protect’ repeatedly, to make us
all feel that what is being
proposed is for the good of us
all. But is it?
If we read between the lines, we
can see quite clearly that, while
the plan is supposed to be about
post-Covid pandemics, it is
really about making sure that
the draconian measures
introduced since 2020 are
maintained as long as possible.
The ‘nobody is safe until
everyone is safe’ mantra which
appears at the end of the second
paragraph in the letter, is saying
to us – as Merkel and other
globalists have strongly hinted
– that restrictions cannot and
will not be lifted until everyone
in the world has been
vaccinated.
If you have any doubts, just
take a look at the very next
sentence, which states: ‘We are
therefore committed to
ensuring universal and
equitable access to safe,
efficacious and affordable
vaccines, medicines and
diagnostics for this and future
pandemics.’
Translation: ‘Africa, you’re
going to take the vaccines we
offer you whether you like it or
not.’
To justify a ‘pandemic treaty,’
and other long-planned changes
being implemented in its wake,
they have to accord Covid a
very special status. The first
sentence of the letter boldly
states: ‘The Covid-19
pandemic is the biggest
challenge to the global
8
community since the 1940s.’
But is that really true? Hong
Kong flu claimed the lives of
between one and four million
people between 1968 and 1970.
But it got a lot less coverage
than Covid. There was no talk
of a permanent ‘New Normal’
being established in 1970, or
the need for a post-WW2-like
settlement. Neither was there
when HIV/AIDS hit in the
1980s. The UN says between
24.8m and 42.2 million people
had died of AIDS-related
illnesses by the end of 2019.
To compare Covid to the
Second World War, as the 24
leaders have done, and argue
that it needs a post-WW2 style
settlement, surely redefines the
word ‘hyperbolic.’ A reminder:
some 75 million people died in
the Second World War –
including around 27 million
citizens of the former Soviet
Union. 60 million Europeans
became refugees. By contrast,
the current number of deaths
'with' Covid is 2.8 million. Yes,
that’s serious –and all deaths
are very sad– but the numbers
alone can’t explain why it’s
Covid –and not other diseases
which killed many more and
came before it– which
necessitates a 'Great Reset'.

We’re told that Covid-19 is ‘the
biggest challenge to the global
community since the 1940s’ but
what happened to all the other
‘biggest challenges’ we’ve
been warned about over the past
thirty years by western leaders?
Where did the ’War on Terror’
disappear to? And what about
climate change?
While of course there needs to
be sensible international co-
operation on matters
concerning global public
health, isn’t there something a
bit creepy about trying to scare
us witless about the ‘next’
pandemic when we are still
living under Covid-19
restrictions? When they state
‘there will be other pandemics
and other major health
emergencies’ the 24 leaders
sound an awful lot like Bill
Gates, who is forever warning
us about the pandemics to
come. In January the Microsoft
founder declared that the next
pandemic, which of course ‘we
are not prepared for,’ could be
‘10 times more serious’.
Thanks Bill, for cheering
everyone up during another
lockdown.
And, having read the letter of
the world leaders, take a look at
this section on the Gates blog:
‘Just as WW2 led to greater
cooperation between countries
to protect the peace and
prioritize the common good, we
think the world has an
important opportunity to turn
the hard-won lessons of this
pandemic into a healthier, more
equal future for all.’ And that,
of course, means ‘getting ready
for the next pandemic.’
But is being in a permanent
state of worry over ‘the next
pandemic’ a good way to live?
Do we really want to give up on
things like hugging, kissing,
mass social gatherings, the
freedom to travel around the
world, and accept the
establishment of a permanent
civil-liberties-destroying bio-
9
security state because of a nasty
lurgy that ‘might’ come along
in the future?
The 24 leaders talk about
building ‘a more robust
international health architecture
that will protect future
generations’ but what if what is
really being built – under the
guise of ‘keeping us safe,’ is
one big hi-tech global prison,
where we will not even be able
to go to the pub without a
‘Vaccine Passport’ or showing
our ‘Covid certification‘ – or be
able to board a flight because
we haven’t had the latest
vaccine ‘update’? Is this the
digitally-controlled future we
really want?
I don’t know about you, but I’d
rather take my chances as a free
citizen in ‘the next pandemic,’
whenever that will be, than live
under the soul-destroying
oppression of ‘protective’
tyranny.

N Indo-Pak relations,
peace is less a bullet-
I ridden dove than a
lacerated phoenix that rises
periodically out of the
ashes of experience.
Its latest emergence has come
in the form of a speech given by
the COAS Gen Qamar Javed
Bajwa at the Islamabad
Security Dialogue on March 18.
If one can surmount the
laboured militarese — yet beyond refusal. Fifty years
“exogenous factors of the
global and regional
environment and inner layers
being the endogenous factors of
internal peace, stability and
developmental orientation” —
it is a speech that deserves
mature attention.
He regretted that “despite the
tremendous human and
resource potential, the unsettled
disputes are dragging this
region back to the swamp of
poverty and underdevelopment.
It is saddening to know that
even today it is among the least
integrated regions of the world
in terms of trade, infrastructure,
water and energy cooperation”.
He added with unquestionable
sincerity: “Let me say
profoundly that we are ready to
improve our environment by
resolving all our outstanding
issues with our neighbours
through dialogue in a dignified
and peaceful manner.”
Fiery phoenixes
F.S. Aijazuddin, Dawn
It revealed a pragmatism for
which one predecessor lost his
job and many prime ministers
lost theirs.
To some observers,
significance lay in the ensuing
silence of organs of the
government constitutionally
charged with the conduct of
international relations — the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
the prime minister.
Before that speech, on Feb 26,
the DGMOs of India and
Pakistan announced a ceasefire,
and since then, Indian Prime
Minister Modi responded on
March 23 — our Pakistan Day
— with a standardised greeting
prepared by a dutiful Ministry
of External Affairs underling.
At present, overdue discussions
are taking place in New Delhi
on implementation (and
violations) of the Indus Waters
Treaty.
All these cumulative initiatives
have put analysts into a tizzy.
Should they interpret these
steps as heralds of a spring
thaw? History cautions
otherwise. Indo-Pak relations
are like Canadian winters —-
each thaw exposes carcasses of
animals that perished under
earlier snowfalls.
Step back from Wagah border
and you will realise that nothing
has changed. Visas are as
extinct as dinosaurs. Indian
publications are equated with
pornography and banned on
local internet platforms. Books
and periodic-a----ls rot like
fresh vegetables at the border.
Ig--norant are those who only
their country know.
Prime Minister Imran Khan
feels he has made enough
overtures to his Indian
counterpart. He could consider,
however, doing something
more dramatic, such as a visit to
India — unsolicited, uninvited,
ago, Henry Kissinger made
such a seminal breakthrough in
Sino-US relations when he
visited Beijing in July 1971. In
February 1987, Gen Ziaul Haq
caught prime minister Rajiv
Gandhi off guard when he flew
to New Delhi, ostensibly to
watch the cricket test match
between Pakistan and India
being played at Jaipur. And in
December 2015, PM Modi
dropped in ‘unexpectedly’ at
Lahore to meet PM Nawaz
Sharif. Perhaps that may be the
reason why PM Imran Khan is
hesitant to meet PM Modi.
In her recent book, The
Fragrance of Tears: My
Friendship with Benazir
Bhutto, Victoria Schofield
narrates why Asif Zardari
encouraged her to meet the
motherless Bhutto-Zardari
children: “They smell her on
you.” Imran Khan still smells
Nawaz Sharif on Narendra
Modi.

Prejudice and diplomacy make
uneasy bedfellows. What
would we lose from such a
unilateral gesture by our prime
minister? Face? We have few
hypocrisies left to lose. Would
it damage prospects for peace?
Had our Foreign Office been
adept at reading tarot cards, it
would have realised that it
holds the Ten of Swords.
Interpreted, it means nothing
could be worse. Only
improvement can be expected.
Consider the international
realities that surround us. In the
US, President Biden has other
priorities — the safe
management of the Covid-19
crisis, compounded by
firefighting the incendiary
relationship with China. China
sees us less as an iron brother
and more as an importuning
poor cousin, begging constantly
for handouts — whether of
billion-dollar deposits or
donations of anti-Covid-19
vaccines. Putin might be
inclined to consider a trip to
Islamabad — if he could forget
the abrupt last-minute
cancellation of his visit
scheduled for October 2012.
Afghanistan is a bomb crater
with the US-led coalition forces
bunkered there in a never-
11
ending peace mission. Iran is a
friend in need; its needs in a
siege of sanctions are more
biting than ours. Saudi Arabia
and the UAE? They are too
busy feeding the insatiable
American armaments industry.
We probably have more friends
in South America than in our
own continent.
A non-violent gesture is needed
to convert India from a militant
enemy into an albeit unfriendly
neighbour. The Nobel Laureate
Sam Bellow once wrote: “I am
a phoenix who runs after
arsonists.” Are Pakistan and
India doomed to remain each
other’s arsonists?

Armenia’s Postwar Crisis: What to Know
rmenia has been riven
A
by disputes over its
leadership since its
military defeat by
Azerbaijan last fall.
Newly called
elections are unlikely to
reconcile the divisions in
Armenian society caused by the
battlefield losses.
Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan has called for
early elections after weeks of
protests and a standoff with his
own army. What’s going on?
Pashinyan, Armenia’s forty-
five-year-old prime minister
who was elected in 2018 on the
back of a so-called Velvet
Revolution, is banking on early
elections set for June 20 to quell
a political crisis that has its
roots in Armenia’s bitter defeat
in a forty-four-day war with
neighboring Azerbaijan last
year.
Pashinyan himself triggered the
crisis on February 23, when he
suggested in a TV interview
that Iskander missiles provided
to Armenia by Russia had
underperformed during the war.
When a senior military official
scoffed at these remarks,
Pashinyan fired the official,
only to find himself publicly
challenged by the chief of the
general staff and some forty top
Célestine Bohlen, CFR
military officers, all of whom
demanded his resignation.
Defying what he called a
military “coup d’état,”
Pashinyan summoned his
supporters to the streets of the
capital, Yerevan, to face off
against demonstrators calling
for his ouster. The rival protests
came to a head on March 9,
when the opposition—a
coalition of sixteen parties—
barricaded the parliament
building.
The debate about the
performance of the Russian
missiles was beside the point.
(Moscow denied they were
even used.) The main issue is
Pashinyan’s leadership during
the war and his continued
defense of the tripartite cease-
fire agreement brokered by
Russia. That deal forced
Armenia to cede Azerbaijani
territory seized almost thirty
years ago, after the first war
over the disputed region of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Major opposition parties signed
off on Pashinyan’s March 18
announcement of early
elections, but some minor
parties vowed to continue their
protests, pressing for the
formation of an interim
government ahead of the
balloting in June.
12
What is at stake if the
country’s political crisis
continues?
Prolonged instability in
Armenia could endanger the
fragile truce that went into
effect on November 10. Even if
Pashinyan’s government
survives the June elections, his
authority has been damaged,
and opposition to the truce
negotiated last November
remains high.
Already, much about the peace
settlement remains unclear. The
mandate for Russia’s 1,960
peacekeepers is still undefined;
so is the status of Nagorno-
Karabakh, the ethnic-
Armenian-majority region
whose self-declared
independence remains tenuous.
The Russian troops deployed as
part of the deal have generally
been welcomed by Armenians,
but their presence has raised
concerns in Azerbaijan, given
the checkered history of forces
Russia has deployed as
“peacekeepers” in other
regional conflicts, such as in
neighboring Georgia. Russia
backed separatist forces in the
Georgian regions of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia in the early
1990s and continues to hold
sway over those regions.

Tensions in the Nagorno-
Karabakh region peaked again
in recent weeks as both
Armenia and Azerbaijan
announced on relatively short
notice that they were
conducting large-scale military
exercises.
Why are Armenia and
Azerbaijan in conflict?
The first war over the disputed
region of Nagorno-Karabakh
began in 1991 as the Soviet
Union was collapsing. Armenia
then launched a military
operation to take control of a
region that historically had
been home to an ethnic
Armenian population living
within the Soviet republic of
Azerbaijan.
The victorious Armenian army
not only liberated the disputed
region of Nagorno-Karabakh,
but also occupied seven
surrounding Azerbaijani
districts as a buffer zone. The
land grab led to an exodus of
some 250,000 Azerbaijanis,
whose displacement remained a
festering wound for the next
three decades.
Last November, after
Azerbaijani forces
overwhelmed the Armenian
military with help from drones
provided by its ally Turkey,
Azerbaijan took back the seven
districts, plus one-third of the
so-called Republic of Nagorno-
Karabakh.
Has Russia gained influence
over Armenia and the region
since brokering the peace
deal?
Russia has been widely credited
with bringing last year’s war to
an end, an achievement that
will allow it to keep its
peacekeepers in the region for
at least five years. This has
assured Moscow a major role in
the region’s future, likely at the
expense of France and the
United States, Russia’s partners
in decades-long efforts to
negotiate peace through a
forum known as the Minsk
Group of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in
Europe.
13
But Russia now has to maintain
a delicate balance in its
relations with both Armenia
and Azerbaijan, a difficult task
given that the status of
Nagorno-Karabakh remains
unresolved. And although
Moscow’s influence has
increased, so too has its
vulnerability because of the
position of its peacekeepers,
who are in both Armenia-
controlled Nagorno-Karabakh
and the critical Lachin
Corridor, now back under
Azerbaijani control, that links
the disputed region with
Armenia.
Russia has had cool-but-correct
relations with Pashinyan since
2018, when he led a peaceful
movement that ousted a
Moscow-friendly government.
Pashinyan has also steered a
calibrated “multi-vector”
foreign policy, seeking
cooperation with Europe and
the United States while
avoiding any challenge to
Russia, which remains
Armenia’s major military ally.

Major Power Rivalry in the Middle East
Center for Preventive Action, CFR
n a new paper, Steven A.
Cook, the Eni Enrico
I Mattei senior fellow for
Middle East and Africa
studies at CFR, discusses
how great
competition is altering the
power
prospects for managing
conflicts in the Middle East,
and how Washington should
avoid the kind of strategic
errors that have provided
opportunities for other major
powers, notably Russia and
China, to undermine U.S.
policy. These actors—and to a
lesser extent India and the
European Union—have sought
greater influence in the region.
While competition among
major powers has not led to
direct confrontation yet,
powerful actors have still
sought to establish, extend, and
reinforce influence and prestige
at each other's expense.
Meanwhile, cooperation
remains episodic and
circumstantial.
Although the United States
remains an important—even
the most important—external
actor in the region, American
leaders and the foreign policy
community are debating
whether Washington should be
the primary provider of security
in the region. This debate,
coupled with actual American
disengagement in certain
places, has had three significant
effects: regional powers have
taken matters into their own
hands, external actors have
seized opportunities to exercise
power, and major powers and
their allies have either refused
or failed to compel regional
powers to resolve existing
conflicts.
Developments in places as far
as Europe or the South China
Sea could also sharpen
competition or pave the way for
greater cooperation. Given the
unpredictability and
uncertainty of events, however,
one development is clear: the
American moment of regional
14
supremacy—when no state or
combination of states could
hope to challenge U.S. power
and influence—is over. The
Middle East is now up for grabs
among a variety of regional
powers and external actors,
including the United States.
This power vacuum has made
the region less secure and
competition has affected the
trajectory of conflicts in the
region.
In this new paper—part of a
larger series on managing
global disorder—Cook takes a
deep dive into how great power
competition is affecting the
prospects for regional peace.
For all the challenges the
United States faces in the
Middle East, it remains the
region's most important,
powerful, and influential actor,
so it is essential to understand
how the trajectory of great
power competition is shaping
the potential for the United
States to cooperate with other
major powers and mitigate
conflict.

The Stuck Container Ship on the Suez Canal Was a Metaphor
Marc Levinson, New York Times
he March 23 grounding
of the giant vessel Ever
T Given (which was
freed on Monday) in
the Suez Canal may
have been bad news for
the world economy. Still, corks
have been popping in the
headquarters of the world’s
container shipping lines.
Carriers are having their best
year since at least 2008: Ships
are full, rates are sky-high, and
profits, slim in recent years, are
rolling in.
The Ever Given fiasco will
work out well for the container-
shipping industry, by driving
freight rates even higher as
delays and detours reduce the
number of voyages the vessels
can complete between Asia and
Europe.
But the good news for ship lines
may be fleeting: After the
pandemic-driven boom in
Chinese exports subsides, trade
in the sorts of goods that fill
container ships is likely to be
anemic in the years ahead.
Many of the companies that
traffic in those goods
increasingly recognize that
they’ve done their sums wrong:
The long-distance supply
chains that have defined
globalization since the 1980s
hide risks, of which the
transport delays caused by the
blockage of the Suez Canal are
just the latest example.
It used to be that manufacturing
was a rich-country activity;
poorer countries supplied raw
materials to rich-country
factories and then purchased
their exports. Rich-country
politicians were prone to preach
the virtues of open markets;
their poor-country counterparts
were suspicious of trade and
foreign investment.
But starting in the late 1980s,
the combination of cheaper
container shipping, vanishing
communications costs and
improved computing flipped
the script. Manufacturers and
retailers adopted new strategies
— arranging, for example, to
buy chemicals in Country A,
transform them into plastics in
Country B, mold the plastics
into components in Country C
and deliver them to an assembly
plant in Country D.
Container ships made it
possible to move parts and
components from one country
to another at low cost, while
technology, soon accelerated
by the internet, allowed
managers to oversee their
supply chains from a dates to the rise of industrial
headquarters far away.
Two factors drove this
redistribution of industry. One
15
was wages: The gap between
the pay of factory workers in
China or Mexico and those in
Western Europe, Japan or
North America yawned so wide
that even if the low-wage
workers accomplished far less
in an hour of work, producing
in Shanghai rather than in St.
Louis made financial sense.
The other was economies of
scale. Factories serving the
entire world could specialize,
making a small array of
products in enormous volume
and lowering the cost of each
unit.
Foreign investment was once
intimately related to exporting
and importing. But with
outsourcing, there was no need
for the company at the top of
the chain — often, the brand
name on the final product — to
undertake large investments in
the countries where it wanted
its components or its finished
goods produced. Firms could
build supply chains on the
cheap, contracting with other
companies to do the
manufacturing work rather than
tying up their shareholders’
capital in plants and equipment.
Globalization, which arguably
capitalism around 1830, never
looked like this before.
Executives of multinational
corporations were transfixed by

the promised savings from
shifting production abroad.
Factories in Europe, Japan,
Canada and the United States
closed their doors as companies
chased lower costs. Starting in
the second half of the 1980s and
for two decades after, trade in
manufactured goods grew
twice as fast as the global
economy.
Hardly any attention was paid
to the risks arising from the
number of firms that might be
involved in making and
delivering any given product.
The potential loss of revenue if
the supply chain failed to
deliver goods on time was
simply ignored.
The company at the top of a
supply chain often has little
insight into its suppliers’
suppliers or into the
transportation system that
connects them. Incident after
incident — from the shutdown
of the U.S.-Canada border after
9/11 to the earthquake that
crippled hundreds of Japanese
auto parts plants in 2011 to
pandemic-related factory
closures in 2020 — has shown
long supply chains to be more
fragile than imagined. For
many firms, the consequences
can be painful, even fatal.
And the business risks are not
limited to disruption. Famous
firms have seen their names
tarnished by scandals involving
working conditions or
environmental practices at
obscure companies far down
their supply chains. When
consumers in Europe and North
America, concerned about
repression of the Uyghur
minority in China, demanded
that apparel companies disclose
whether their clothing
contained cotton grown in
Xinjiang province, many
companies, well removed from
the production process, did not
know.
Meanwhile, the ultralarge
container ships like Ever Given
that have entered the world’s
fleet over the past few years
have made long value chains
even more problematic. These
vessels, some carrying as much
cargo as 12,000 trucks, steam
more slowly than their
predecessors. The complexity
of loading and unloading often
puts them behind schedule, and
the sheer number of boxes
moved on and off a single ship
tangles ports and delays
deliveries.
So long-distance trade is slower
and less reliable than it was two
decades ago. That helps explain
why exports of manufactured
goods account for a smaller
share of the world’s economic
output than they did in 2008.
Once the risks are accounted for
properly, manufacturing in
distant places with low wages
isn’t always a bargain.
Yet pronouncements about the
death of globalization are not
well founded. Rather, the stage
16
of globalization we have known
since the 1980s, in which
highly trained employees in the
advanced economies create
physical products to be
manufactured where wages are
lower, is past its peak. In its
place, a new stage of
globalization, in which factory
production and foreign
investment matter less than the
flow of services and ideas, is
advancing quickly.
The Bollywood movies and
Japanese television shows
available on your favorite
streaming service are part of
that flow, but so are the
research, engineering and
design tasks that companies
increasingly distribute across
multiple countries in order to
take advantage of local talent
and shape products to local
tastes.
Cross-border trade in other
commercial services — a
category that excludes
transportation, travel and
goods-related services —
increased roughly 8 percent a
year in the first two decades of
the 21st century, a third again as
fast as trade in manufactured
goods. That figure doesn’t
include growth in the largely
uncountable cross-border flow
of data within corporate
networks.
In globalization’s next stage,
ships carrying metal boxes full
of stuff will no longer be at the
center of the story.

On central bank independence
Dr. Usman W. Chohan, Daily News
he notion of central
bank independence
T
(CBI) is both sensitive
and complex, driven
not just by a local
economic context but
by larger international
“conventional wisdom” on
what monetary authorities
should do. In Pakistan, the
ongoing efforts to make the
State Bank a truly autonomous
body have drawn considerable
political heat. The language
surrounding the debate,
including accusations of a
“viceroy” governor of the State
Bank, have shown just how
politically-charged the question
of CBI can be in an emerging
market. For this reason, it helps
to examine the merits and
demerits of CBI as it has played
out internationally.
In ‘Reimagining Public
Managers: Delivering Public
Value’, I dedicated a chapter to
the question of central bank
independence in the context of
creating value for the public.
What I found, and built upon in
my analysis, was that ultimately
creating value for society in the
monetary sphere could be
attained by an autonomous
central bank or just as much by
a democratically-dependent
central bank. In other words,
CBI is not an automatic
guarantor of public value
creation in monetary affairs.
Perhaps more importantly in its
converse: both an autonomous
central bank and a The opponents of central bank
democratically-subservient one
can equally bungle the inflation
problem, both can put monetary
stability at risk, and both can
place the financial system as a
whole in jeopardy. To see why,
the arguments of both sides can
be weighed in the abstract, as
well as our local context.
Proponents of central bank
independence will argue that
governments (both democratic
and autocrat) have a strong
incentive to disburse a
monetary stimulus during
either an upcoming election (to
gain votes) or during mass
public discontent.
Governments therefore
continually risk the temptation
of driving up inflation and
running large deficits (violating
financial discipline) in order to
placate their publics. Such
behaviour is short-termist in
nature, generating lasting
national deficits for the sake of
winning immediate benefits
from monetary actions. In the
past, certain governments in
Pakistan did demonstrate a
tendency to pressure the SBP
on monetary policy, and some
governors of the SBP did resign
in protest. Therefore, the
foregoing argument does have
some application in Pakistan,
since some governments have
in the past shown an inclination
to resort to the monetary levers
to curry favour with the public.
17
independence, who have been
vocal in their dissatisfaction
with the new SBP law, argue
from several points that CBI is
not in the country’s long-term
interest. The first argument
stems from the notion of
democratic control of monetary
resources. Since the governor
of the State Bank is not elected
by the people, it would be
undemocratic to empower such
a technocrat to make the sorts
of calls over a nation of 210
million people at his seemingly
personal discretion on sensitive
monetary affairs that have such
wide-ranging effects. The
second argument flows from
this point, and regards national
sovereignty. The IMF has been
the major advocate of granting
autonomy to the SBP, yet many
view the IMF as an instrument
of neo-imperialism and hybrid
warfare, and rightly so. The
notion of a “viceroy” governor
emanates from this point, since
an IMF-imposed governor will
likely work in the Fund’s
interests rather than in the
interest of the people of
Pakistan. It isn’t just that such a
governor would take orders
from the IMF or enact policies
that serve external agents; an
IMF-appointed governor may
simply do nothing during an
economic crisis, and through
his deliberate inaction sink a
society or bring down a
government.

There are two further important
arguments against CBI which
reflect the changing
international attitudes and
“conventional wisdom” around
autonomy for central banks,
which have emerged in the
wake of the 2008 Global
Financial Crisis (GFC). First,
central bankers are not as astute
a group of technocrats as they
would like to have us believe.
Before the GFC, it was
fashionable to treat central bank
czars as all-knowing demigods,
in the way that the US Federal
Reserve’s Alan Greenspan
projected himself as a case. Instead, (1) increasing
benevolent philosopher-king
who understood the “animal
spirits” of the market. After the
GFC, many financial observers
realised that the emperor wore
no clothes, and the arrogant
Greenspan had been foolishly
propping up asset bubbles in the
United States (“the Greenspan
put”) for several decades,
almost leading the world
financial system to collapse in
the process. Second, the
obsession in the West that
erupted in the wake of the
1970’s oil price shocks centred
around controlling inflation as
the #1 priority for central
banks. However, inflation
doesn’t really exist in the
developed world anymore. No
matter how much money is
pumped into the system,
countries such as Japan and the
United States simply don’t see
any inflationary threat. They
are aging societies that are
gradually de-industrialising and
importing goods at cheaper
prices from the Third World. So
the obsession with inflation,
which is a prime motive for
promoting CBI, is redundant in
the West itself.
For the IMF to be pushing
outdated ideas in the
developing world is nothing
new—whatever fails to work in
the West is often promoted as
an IMF solution in the Third
World—austerity being a prime
example. As a young and
rapidly growing country,
Pakistan does experience
double-digit inflation, but this
should not be the #1 priority for
our economic security in any
employment, (2) promoting
economic growth, and (3)
protecting the value of the
Rupee are more important, in
my judgement, than the risk of
runaway inflation in peacetime
conditions. So while Pakistan is
seemingly adopting a “modern”
policy change according to IMF
stipulations, we must realise
that CBI is now an antiquated
notion which is being
questioned in the developed
world itself. Although CBI was
one of IMF’s pre-conditions for
its $6 billion loan to Pakistan
when it faced difficulties in
2019, $6 billion is too small a
price to pay, the opponents
would argue, for compromising
national sovereignty and
economic security.
A new paradigm for our central
bank must weigh the pros and
cons of CBI in the larger and
longer-term context. Although
politicians have certainly had,
and will continue to have, an
immense temptation to borrow
from the SBP and bully the
18
bank towards disbursements on
an easy monetary stance, there
are several counter-arguments
to CBI that must also be
carefully attended to. Having a
“viceroy” governor who acts as
a yes-man to the IMF is not in
our longer-term interest, nor is
it wise to think of wonky
technocrats as all-knowing
sages. To have an
unaccountable technocrat run
monetary affairs with impunity
based on his own (or his
external benefactor’s)
prejudices is as bad a formula
as a short-termist elected
government trying to gain free
votes through binge-spending.
Central bankers are, as Alan
Greenspan finally admitted in
his disrepute, vulnerable to
poor judgement just as
everybody else is.
In his apologia, ‘The Map and
the Territory’, Greenspan
argued that central bankers may
have a map for the economy in
their minds, but then they have
to actually navigate a difficult,
complex, and shifting
economic territory with that
imperfect map. In Pakistan,
self-centred politicians and
hubristic technocrats alike may
have something akin to a map
in their mind, but taking
monetary policy decisions in a
young, large, and undisciplined
society, is a difficult “territory”
for any authority to navigate.
Central bank independence
cannot, in and of itself, resolve
that challenge of maps and
territories.
 Pak-Russia relations— the way forward
Ambassador (R) Tariq Osman Hyder, The Nation
ooking back at the
sweep of Pak-USSR
L then Russia, relations
since the inception of
diplomatic relations in
1948 one thing is clear;
relations with Russia are of
immense importance to
Pakistan. There have been
missteps and misperceptions on
both sides with ups and downs,
which have necessitated a
steady and successful process
of trust-building. To give one
example, it is widely believed
that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali
Khan turned down the
invitation to visit the USSR and
instead went to the USA. In
fact, he was keen for the visit to
take place, and his team had
been assembled including a
young army officer Sahibzada
Yaqub-Khan, later Ambassador
in Moscow then Foreign
Minister, as he had learnt
Russian in a POW camp during
WW-II. Negotiations for the
visit had begun through the
Ambassadors of both countries
in Tehran but when they were
switched to Delhi, they became
stalled, (as Ambassador Sajjad
Hyder has related in a chapter
on The Visit that Never Was in
his book the Foreign Policy of
Pakistan); and that is why the
Prime Minister first went to
Washington. India has
remained a factor in
constraining military and other
cooperation with Pakistan.
President Musharraf in his
meeting with President Putin in
2006 in New York—on the
sidelines of the UNGA which I
attended—suggested that
Russia be more forthcoming in
arms sales to Pakistan now that
after the US-India nuclear deal
India was growing closer to the
USA, or was India still that
constraining a factor? President
Putin frankly admitted that
Russia’s arms sales and
economic cooperation with
India precluded arms sales
cooperation with Pakistan at
that time.
During the Cold War, relations
were difficult, as again during
the 1971 War with India and
again during the Soviet
involvement in Afghanistan. In
the intervening period, Russian
peacemaking at Tashkent to
end the 1965 Indo-Pak war
gave a political boost which
unlocked both economic and
military cooperation. This was
also the case from 1972
onwards when Prime Minister
Bhutto visited Moscow. The
Soviet Union built the Karachi
Steel Mills, major thermal
power plants at Muzaffargarh,
Multan, and Guddu; and
assisted Pakistan in the
establishment of the Oil and
Gas Development Company
(OGDC). After the Soviet
involvement in Afghanistan
ended, relations again slowly
improved.
The Pakistan Steel Mills
Corporation (PASMIC as it was
also known in the USSR) with
its 1.1-million-tonne capacity,
became the largest industrial
project in Pakistan. Thousands
of young engineers and
technicians were sent to Russia
to master the various required
disciplines, and many Russian
experts lived in Pakistan to
complete the project. The
construction and other
expertise gained in the process
led to their deployment
throughout Pakistan; but also in
the wave of Pakistani labour
and technicians assisting in
infrastructure and other
construction projects in the
Gulf and the Middle East,
whose foreign remittances,
largesse to their families and
the country benefit us to this
day.
There has been a constant effort
throughout on the part of all
Pakistani leaders and political
parties to try to improve
relations with Russia. Russia,
notwithstanding its
traditionally priority
relationship with India, has also
recognised the importance of
Pakistan as a middle power, its
strategic location a trijunction
between the Middle East,
Central, and South Asia, and
the role it can play in stabilising
Afghanistan, which poses both
an ongoing narcotics threat to
Russia and a potential threat
from terrorists.
The upward trajectory of our
bilateral relations is
encouraging. The Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation
(SCO)—which we joined
owing to Russian and Chinese

support—and the UNGA have
in the past two years provided
opportunities for talks between
the two leaders and Foreign
Ministers. One hopes that
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
will avail the invitation to visit
Islamabad at the earliest.
Trade has not reached its
potential, hovering around
$500 million overall, with the
balance in Pakistan’s favour
except when we preferred last
year in 2020 to import wheat
from a reliable source—$300
hundred million worth for some
700,000 tons—from Russia,
when overall trade went up to
$780.6 million. There are
systemic hurdles, including a
lack of direct flights, banking
issues due to US sanctions
which other countries have
better managed, and slow two-
month processing in issuances
of business visas by the Russian
side, that need to be overcome
to enhance trade. The freezing
of some $117 million Russian
funds by the Sindh High Court
at the instance of commercial
parties in dispute over funds
they claimed remained
unsettled in the counterpart
trade used to repay Soviet Steel
Mills and other project
assistance through mainly
Pakistani textiles and garments,
on the breakup of the USSR
became a major irritant
discouraging investment in
Pakistan. This issue was finally
resolved in December 2019 and
all the amount due to Russia,
$93.5 million was repaid and
whatever else both countries
agreed was due to the Pakistani
business companies was also
settled. A development long
overdue but all the more
welcome when arrived at.
Institutional mechanisms are
working well. Four rounds of
political consultations at
Foreign Secretary level have
been held. The Consultative
Group on Strategic Stability has
met 13 times since its first
meeting in 2003 in which I had
the privilege of leading our
side. Of course, gestation of
cooperation takes time. The Mi-
35 helicopters discussed at that
first meeting were delivered in
2018. On the economic side the
Inter-Governmental
Commission (IGC) on Trade,
Economic, Scientific, and
Technical Cooperation has held
six meetings, and has a number
of joint working groups.
Pursuant to the Pakistan-Russia
Military Agreement of 2017, a
joint Military Technical
Commission was set up,
military sales explored, five
joint military exercises held,
two joint naval exercises apart
from Russian naval ships’
participation in the multilateral
AMAN exercises hosted by the
Pak Navy, and six rounds of
military staff talks, the latest
earlier this month.
Amongst the other
mechanisms, given limited
space I will only draw
particular attention to the Joint
Coordination Committee on the
North-South Gas Pipeline, now
re-termed Pakistan Stream Gas
Pipeline, which is pivotal.
Given that a political and
institutional structure has been
20
built up and convergences
recognised, especially on
Afghanistan; and given
Pakistan’s objective to try to
reap the benefits of inter-
connectivity from China’s BRI
of which CPEC is a key part,
and also from Russia’s
Eurasian Economic
Community, where do we go
from here, how do we
prioritise? That is the key
question. What should
Pakistan’s key objectives be?
On the political/diplomatic
side, it is clear a closer
relationship with Russia has
obvious advantages in the
region and beyond. What can
we leverage in concrete terms
from this improved
relationship?
A key objective should be to get
the North-South, Karachi to
Lahore LPG pipeline, off the
ground. The agreement was
signed in 2015 and progress is
slow. In negotiations since
then, various hurdles have been
cleared. Most recently due to
the decision of the Supreme
Court that the amount so far
collected in the name of Gas
Infrastructure Development
Cess (GIDC) needs to be spent
on Gas Infrastructure projects
including TAPI, IP and North
South Gas Pipeline project. The
Ministry of Petroleum
committed to the Supreme
Court that GIDC funds would
be spent on North South Gas
Pipeline Projects. Hence the
Russian side was re-engaged to
acquiesce to the proposal of
carrying out the project jointly
on equity participation rather
than entirely out of the Russian

investment as originally
envisaged.
This new shift necessitated the
drafting of an additional
Supplemental Agreement
called addendum to the already
agreed inter-governmental
agreement. Both sides have
agreed and approved this
addendum. I will not go into
other technical details—that the
cost may go up from $1.5 to
around $2.5 billion if the
originally planned diameter is
very sensibly increased to cater
for projected higher demand
now, obviating redoing the
exercise in the future especially
over right of way, other
locational issues and financial
cost benefits.
Once this mega-project
flagship takes off it will begin a
process of unlocking various
constraints across the board and
21
meeting future demand on What happened to the Karachi
which our progress depends. Steel Mill is well known. We
We must regard it as a strategic should not squander any
opportunity as we did with opportunity to put it back on its
PASMIC. Looking further feet and to enhance its capacity.
ahead on the economic side
there is again the Steel Mill. In In conclusion, we must accord
2012, Russia offered a $500 and maintain strategic focus on
million loan for its refurbishing the Pak Stream North-South
and upgradation. While Pipeline. As it progresses on the
negotiations to this end ground apart from contributing
continued, Russia withdrew to our developmental goals, it
this offer in 2015 when its will have a positive knock-on
economy was hit by sanctions impact on our overall
after the takeover of Crimea, objectives of deepening
and due to declining oil prices. bilateral and multilateral
One would hope that when understanding; energy,
PASMIC is tendered for again, economic, and business
Russia should be given the first opportunities, connectivity;
chance to restart it. When the military ties, counter-terrorism,
Steel Mill was set up by the counter narcotics, peaceful
USSR, it also set up four other nuclear cooperation including
equivalent-capacity steel mills towards the NSG, and concrete
in Iran, India, Turkey and regional cooperation,
Egypt. Each steel mill, apart particularly on stabilising
from PASMIC, soon doubled Afghanistan.
its capacity and went beyond.