By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
    
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan, after taking oath as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan, in his inaugural address on Sunday, called on the rich to start paying taxes and said Pakistan will begin an austerity drive to reduce debt, a campaign he will start by selling the fleet of bulletproof cars of his new office.
He also spoke about revamping the judiciary, reforming the educational and healthcare sectors, campaigning against corruption, devolution of power, providing jobs to youths and building dams to end the water crisis.
His election and his speeches have been keenly followed by the Pakistan’s immediate neighbours, that is, Afghanistan, India, China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran – all four of whom share long boundaries with Pakistan.
To Pakistan’s east is India, which has a 2,912 km border. To its west is Iran, which has a 909 km border with Pakistan. And to its northwest lies Afghanistan, with a shared border of 2,430 km. China is towards the northeast has a 523 km border with Pakistan.
The four said countries, along with other world nations, have congratulated Khan and he in turn has responded by saying that Pakistan will work to have the "best relations” with all its neighbours and hold talks to normalise ties, since without proper interaction, peace is not possible in the region.
The question arises: How far his hand will be free to have peaceful relations with its neighbours in view of the fact that the security policy of Pakistan is largely determined by its powerful military, not by civilian governments.
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Dr. Hassan Rouhani, has extended his sincere congratulations to Prime Minister Imran Khan, expressing Tehran’s readiness to expand ties and cooperation with Islamabad so that the two countries would further improve bilateral relations.
At the centre of Pakistan-Iran relations is energy sector cooperation, particularly the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline worth about $7.5 billion that has remained stalled for years.
On March 11, 2013, the then presidents of Iran and Pakistan, Dr. Mahmood Ahmadinejad and Asif Ali Zardari respectively, had performed the groundbreaking of IP at the joint border point to deliver 750 million cubic feet of Iranian natural gas per day to Pakistan by January 2015. But later that year when the pro-Saudi Nawaz Sharif took power as prime minister, the project was put off the table due to what his government called fear of international sanctions.
On 25th of February 2014, Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Pakistan, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi claimed that if there were no international sanctions the project could be completed within three years.
But when in August 2017 after Sharif’s dismissal by the Judiciary Abbasi became caretaker premier, he did nothing practical in this regard, despite the fact on 14 July 2015 Iran and the P5+1 group (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US—plus Germany) concluded Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to effectively end the economic sanctions.
It is interesting to see what practical steps Imran Khan will take in this regard, since the pipeline will be of enormous benefits to energy-starved Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for dialogue with Pakistan in a letter to his newly-elected counterpart as the "only way forward” for peace between the two traditional rivals of the Subcontinent.
Khan for his part has offered an olive branch to India after his election victory last month, proposing talks to resolve the chronic question of divided Kashmir.
China is firmly entrenched politically and economically in Pakistan, while the government of Afghanistan, a country which is under American occupation, ought to show greater independence in its decisions with Pakistan for solving the border and other outstanding problems including terrorism, since the countries will continue to be neighbours, long after the US retreats from the region.
Let us keep our fingers crossed in view of the winds of change blowing in Pakistan, and see whether Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds or not in his endeavours, especially since the US is the villain of the piece and could be the main hurdle to regional peace and security.