The Chabahar Checkmate 

The Chabahar Checkmate 

Context

Pakistan must abandon isolationism, worry more about trade and development

Backdrop

• First Consignment: India sent its first consignment of wheat to Afghanistan through the Iranian port of Chabahar; in the following six months it will send six more
• Changing Relations: This will also take almost all the Afghan trade out of the Afghan Transit Route through Pakistan and give it to Iran, changing the nature of Afghanistan’s relations both with Pakistan and Iran
• US Reaction: US Secretary of State visiting New Delhi recently, assured India that even if America re-imposes sanctions on Iran in the coming days, it will exempt the Chabahar facility

Pak didn’t pay attention

• When the Chabahar deal was made between Tehran and India in 2003, Pakistan didn’t feel compelled to revisit the country’s strategic location between India and Central Asia

No Response to MFN

• It had turned away from the idea of Pak-India free trade and did not respond to India’s award of Most Favoured Nation status in 1996. The idea of being a trading hub didn’t appeal to it

Contrasting views within Pakistan

• Speaking at a local think tank in Islamabad on “National Security, Deterrence and Regional Stability in South Asia” in 2016, former defence secretary said: “The alliance between India, Afghanistan and Iran is a security threat to Pakistan”
• Another retired Defence Secretary said the existence of “such a formidable bloc” in the neighbourhood had “ominous and far-reaching implications” for Pakistan
• In stark contrast, Adviser on Foreign Affairs said that Pakistan did not see Iran’s Chabahar port as a rival and that Pakistan was in fact exploring the possibility of developing links with it from Gwadar.

China thinks differently

• As far as China is concerned, the CPEC would benefit by joining up with India, Afghanistan and Iran, three countries where China has also invested in a big way

Conclusion

Although it is late in the day, an increasingly unstable Pakistan has to abandon the path of isolationism and worry more about trade and economic development