Iran–Pakistan relations covers the bilateral relations between the adjacent states of Iran and Pakistan. After Pakistan gained its independence in August 1947, Iran was one of the first countries to recognize its sovereign status.

Despite some ups and downs and interference of some governments, both countries have continued to cooperate economically where possible and are forming alliances in a number of areas of mutual interest, such as fighting the drug trade along their border and combating the insurgency in the Balochistan region. Iran has also expressed an interest in joining the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as part of the larger Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.

Islamabad has always supported Iran in hard times and in any voting in the United Nations or international communities despite the West’s pressures, and it has shown its loyalty to its friendship to Iran. Iranians will not support Pakistan’s support during the eight-year Iraqi imposed war and even during the UNSC’s attempts to issue resolutions against Iran. These two Muslim countries have great potentials to cooperate together in different fields but so far this opportunity has been less noticed by governments of both countries and it seems due to the regional condition, both sides have shown more determination to bolster the relation especially their trade relation.

Pakistan is one of the few countries where Iranian influence is positively received as per polls conducted by the Pew Research Center. Polls have consistently shown that a very high proportion of Pakistanis view their western neighbor positively. Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei has also called for the sympathy, assistance and inter-cooperation of all Muslim nations, including Pakistan.

The bilateral trade between the two countries has been affected by the U.S. sanctions and policies of governments in both sides, but due to a shift in the policies of Imran Khan and President Rouhani governments, both sides can improve their trade cooperation.

Both sides has recently agreed on strengthening bilateral trade and economic ties by signing a free trade agreement (FTA), building an effective banking channel, establishing markets along the border, eliminating illegal trade, exchanging business delegations, organizing joint trade exhibitions and businessmen-to-businessmen meetings. Opening of some border points are of the other signs showing determination of both countries for boosting economic relations.

But before boosting border trade or any business, both sides need to improve their security cooperation in their joint borders which harm their relations. Terrorist groups which are mainly supported by the enemies of both countries do not let the relation between Iran and Pakistan get warmer and both countries should work together to clean their borders from the terrorist groups.

Recent cooperation agreement between Iran and China has been welcomed by Pakistan as the country itself has started cooperation with China and now they can have a trilateral cooperation in the region for improving the trade and business in the region.

If Pakistan continues to be serious in doing business with Iran, both countries can help each other in different fields and it will also reinforce the Muslim world because the more Muslim countries get closer together, the more the Muslim world would get united against the plots and the West’s atrocities and rifts.

Iran as a pioneer Muslim country has always shown its sincerity to other countries especially to its neighboring states and Muslim ones, and it has always supported unity among the Muslim nations but unfortunately the governments under influence of the foreign countries have snubbed Iran’s friendship hand and it seems Pakistan this time under Imran Khan government is serious to boost its economic and security ties with Tehran and the both sides can later work on their joint gas pipeline when the sanctions  are removed.

Quereshi’s meeting with high-ranking Iranian officials bespeaks Pakistan’s approach towards ties with Iran and it seems Iran-Pakistan ties are getting into a new era.

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Over 8,000 billion tomans have been invested in the projects which are mostly on fisheries and water supply.

The agricultural projects were inaugurated through a video conference due to the pandemic.

Every week, the president opens several important projects on petrochemicals, oil, industry, tourism, sports, infrastructure, development and health to follow the strategy of “Surge in Production” declared by the Supreme Leader.

Nearly 14,000 hectares of agricultural lands in arid plains in Iran’s Sistan region have started using irrigation thanks to a government project which seeks to eliminate poverty and boost jobs in the underprivileged region.

President Rouhani ordered the rollout of the project on Thursday using a video conference call from his office in Tehran.

The lands located near the border with Pakistan in southeastern Iran are spread across 729 villages mostly in Zabol County in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan.

Agriculture minister Kazem Khavazi said that irrigation project would boost food security in Iran’s largest but poorest province.

Rouhani ordered the launch of over 4,600 agricultural projects on Thursday as part of his weekly inauguration campaigns.

His website said the projects had cost over 81 trillion rials (over $338 million) in spending, adding that they would create a total of 42,300 new jobs across the country.

The projects included nearly 4,000 drip irrigation systems, some 571 livestock and poultry units as well as a total of 150 fishery and aquaculture projects.

Khavazi said drip irrigation systems is now installed at nearly 2.5 million hectares of farming lands across Iran, almost double the area reported in 2013.

He said Iran had also reached a point of full self-sufficiency in manufacturing parts and components of irrigation systems inside the country.

On fisheries and aquaculture, the minister said output in the sector had seen a four-fold increase in eight years to 49,000 metric tons a year, adding that Iran is currently earning nearly $0.5 billion a year from fisheries exports.

Khavazi said Iran is now a net exporter of butter, a product for which the country used to spend big for 50,000 tons of imports each year.

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In the unveiling ceremony, some Iranian officials including Tehran Provincial Governor Anoshirvan Mohseni Bandpey were taking part and the first home-made subway car was inaugurated by President Hassan Rouhani through video-conferencing.

According to a report by the Iranian authorities, the completion of the project to produce the metro carriages inside the country took 18 months and during this period, the share of the Iranian companies in the know-how knowledge of designing and producing the metro carriages rose from the 25-30% to 85%.

Despite being under foreign sanctions, the Iranian experts have been able to domestically produce previously imported equipment and goods in a bid to neutralize the impact of the sanctions in line with the guidelines of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei in accordance with his Resistant Economy doctrine.

In the inaugural ceremony, President Rouhani said the United States blocked Iran’s access to ten million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by pressuring the companies involved in the transferring of the vaccines to Iran.

“We have done what we should have done. We bought vaccines from India and we paid for it, but then they said ‘our Judiciary has gotten in the way and we cannot give you the vaccines,’” Rouhani said during a video conference call on Thursday during a ceremony to inaugurate five national knowledge-based and innovative projects.

Pointing to the unprecedented U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Rouhani said Tehran’s general impression was that no country would target another country’s access to basic needs such as food and medicine with sanctions, but the United States, under former president Donald Trump, proved Iran wrong.

He also explained that importing vaccines is not an easy job to do, stressing that “wherever there is a vaccine, we immediately provide money to purchase it.”

“I want to say that this is not a simple matter,” he said. “The administration, the Health Ministry and the Central Bank have taken all the necessary measures … and I stress that nothing comes before the issue of vaccines for us.”

The president noted that Iran has bought 16.8 million doses of vaccines via the World Health Organization’s COVAX global vaccine scheme, which is being gradually imported into the country.

Iran was among the front-runners in placing an early order to purchase vaccines, he said.

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Referring to the final destiny of the Trump administration in the US, he said “it is not just the end of an administration but it is the failure of maximum pressure policy against thegreat Iranian nation.”

Today is the day to overcome and defeat economic terrorism which was aimed at disturbing people’s life, he noted.

Despite all pressures and after a three-year war, violence and terrorist acts, there is stability and development in Iran’s economy, the Iranian president said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, President Rouhani lauded the 6.5% growth in the country’s industry and said that presently “not only the US maximum pressure and economic terrorism have failed to function but their plotters have collapsed themselves”.

Commenting on the US administration policies, the Iranian president said “a president who had no political understanding took control of a country and appointed a silly secretary of state and an extremist national security advisor. This is while the president himself had business and gambling ideology.”

Now that Iranians observe victory against pressure and terrorism, Americans are facing a big failure in social and political arenas and a big rift inside the US, Rouhani said.

He advised the US to stop breaking the law, violating commitments, saying damages caused by Trump will not be compensated soon.

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