Imran Khan to become first Pakistani PM to visit Russia in over two decades

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's Council of Heads of State meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. (AFP/File)

• Pakistan’s foreign minister says the prime minister will visit the Russian Federation during the ongoing month
• Former Cold War rivals, Pakistan and Russia have tried to broaden and deepen their relations in recent years

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to become the first Pakistani head of government in over two decades to visit Russia as he prepares to undertake an official visit to that country during the ongoing month, announced one of his senior cabinet members on Monday.
The two countries developed a bitter rivalry during the Cold War days after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Pakistan supported the United States during that period and assisted the Afghan resistance factions with their guerrilla warfare.
The two sides have tried to broaden and deepen their relations in recent years, with Russia lifting a longstanding arms embargo in 2014 which it had imposed on Pakistan decades ago.
It may be recalled that Nawaz Sharif was the last Pakistani prime minister who went to Moscow in 1999.
“Our relations with Russia have gradually improved,” Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a statement. “Now Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited Prime Minister Imran Khan to visit Russia and PM Khan will go to Moscow this month.”
“I think our relations with Russia are undergoing a pleasant change,” he added.
Pakistan’s increased diplomatic engagements with Russia are said to be part of its quest to diversify its foreign policy.
Last year, the two countries formally signed an amended inter-governmental agreement for a flagship pipeline project due to be carried out by Russia which would join Pakistan’s Punjab province with its Karachi port city.
The project was earlier known as the North-South Pipeline, though it is now called the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline Project which will deliver imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Pakistan’s coastal regions to industrial areas in Punjab.
The initiative has remained on hold since 2015 due to disagreements over fees and United States sanctions against the Russian state conglomerate Rostec.
In September 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Pakistan and held wide-ranging talks covering bilateral relations and regional and global issues.
“The Foreign Minister [Shah Mahmood Qureshi in a meeting with his Russian counterpart in Islamabad] underlined that strengthening of relations with the Russian Federation was an important foreign policy priority for Pakistan,” a statement circulated by the Pakistani foreign office said after Lavrov’s visit.