Asian Research Thesis Index

Abstract

Pakistan and Russia acted hostile damaging interests of each other during the Cold War and relations suffered from
trust deficit afterwards. Interests of Pakistan and Russia start converging after 9/11, when both remained on the
same page with regards to the international campaign against Al-Qaeda as they not only expressed strong
commitment to root out the terrorism in the region but also provided full support to the U.S. led forces in
Afghanistan. Since then both have entered into institutional relationship, formed several bilateral and became part
of regional forums to discuss global, regional and bilateral issues. In the backdrop of emerging regional political
environment because of U.S./NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, Indian tilt towards the U.S. and West, Ukrainian

crisis, bilateral and global convergence, Pakistan and Russia got the opportunity to translate high level engagements
into tangible outcome in bilateral relations. Pakistan has supported Russian's observer status in the Organization of
Islamic Conference (OIC) reciprocating the fact that Russia supported first observer status of Pakistan at the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and later full membership. Pakistan's accession into important regional
organization SCO as full member deemed as step forward in Pakistan's relations with Russia.
Since the rapprochement between Pakistan and Russia started a decade ago, both countries witnessed a "milestone"
defense cooperation pact when a Russia Defense Minister paid an official visit to Pakistan in 45 years; important
developments in Pak-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical
Cooperation and Joint Working Group on Energy at Moscow in 2014 took place. Both countries have expressed their
readiness to collaborate in the fields of defense, trade, economy, science, technology, agriculture, education and
culture to gain new impetus due to continuous high level interaction between the two countries. However, despite
the political convergence, institutional and structured ties between the two countries along with some factors will
continuously impede fast track implementation of agreed proposals.

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