MOSCOW
Prime Minister Imran Khan reached Moscow on Wednesday on a two-day official visit on the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The prime minister is accompanied by a high-level delegation including federal ministers Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Asad Umar, Hammad Azhar, Commerce Adviser Abdur Razzak Dawood, National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf and Amir Mahmood Kiani.
After a span of two decades, this is the first official visit of any Pakistani prime minister to Russia. The bilateral summit will be the highlight of the visit. During the summit meeting, the two leaders will review the entire array of bilateral relations including energy cooperation, according to Foreign Office.
They will also have a wide-ranging exchange of views on major regional and international issues, including Islamophobia and the situation in Afghanistan.
The prime minister’s visit will contribute to the further deepening of the multifaceted Pakistan-Russia bilateral relationship and enhancement of mutual cooperation in diverse fields.
Pakistan-Russia relations have made impressive progress over the past two decades. There has been regular interaction between the two sides at the highest level as well as the working level.
The prime minister has spoken thrice to President Putin on August 25, 2021, September 14, 2021 and January 17, 2022. The prime minister has also extended an invitation to President Putin to visit Pakistan.
The prime minister’s trip to Russia comes amid rising tensions between Moscow and Kiev after President Vladimir Putin deployed military forces into two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine.
Khan’s visit comes after President Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Monday, and his signing of a decree on the deployment of Russian troops to the two breakaway regions, moves that have drawn international condemnation and immediate US sanctions, with President Joe Biden signing an executive order to halt US business activity in the breakaway regions. In an interview published on Monday, Khan played down the timing of the visit, and any effect it would have on Pakistan’s relations with the West, saying the trip was planned “well before the emergence of the current phase of Ukrainian crisis … I received the invitation from President Putin much earlier.”
In an interview to Russia Today broadcast on Tuesday, Khan reiterated that his two-day visit for talks on economic cooperation was planned before the current crisis. “This doesn’t concern us, we have a bilateral relation with Russia and we really want to strengthen it,” Khan said of the Ukraine crisis.
Relations between Pakistan and Russia were minimal for years as Islamabad sided with the United States in the Cold War and was given Major Non-NATO Ally status by Washington after US forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001. In recent years, however, relations between the United States and Pakistan have deteriorated and there has been a thawing between Moscow and Islamabad, which has seen the planning of projects in the gas and energy fields.
