Pakistan and Tajikistan are two Muslim states with a thin layer of cooperative interaction in specific fields. The reason behind a limited scope of cooperation with various common cultural and societal similarities is inherited in the historical estrangement. The history of the Cold War period and Pakistan’s decision to join the United States in the broader designs of great power politics, on the one hand, and Tajikistan’s position under Soviet rule, on the other hand, remained the main points which created various political and diplomatic gaps between the governments of both states. The formal relations between both states were mainly initiated after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the bipolar world from the international system, and the rise of American supremacy. The leaders of both states altered their mainstream patterns of foreign policies for each other and let their nations start multidimensional cooperation in diverse fields. Despite having desire to increase the scope of bilateral cooperative ties in diverse directions, the foreign relations between Pakistan and Tajikistan remained limited to certain fields, and remained an area of less political attention for the governments of both states. The societal relationship between Islamabad and Dushanbe proved an important feature of cooperative bilateralism due to the high number of Tajik people living in different parts of Pakistan. As a result of the Soviet collapse and the outbreak of an intra-state conflict in Tajikistan, the government of Pakistan accommodated various groups of Tajik refugees, and it started active efforts for providing a better lifestyle to the Tajik refugees. Various international humanitarian organizations, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), reported hundreds and thousands of Tajik refugees were residing in Pakistan. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) also mentioned the status of Tajik refugees in Pakistan in its official reports. The Tajik diaspora residing in Pakistan always remained active in introducing their traditions through arranging various cultural activities that strengthened the societal contacts between Islamabad and Dushanbe. The embassy of Tajikistan in Islamabad is very active in this regard because the diplomatic mission of Tajikistan in Pakistan is investing its full potential in increasing people-to-people contacts between Islamabad and Dushanbe.
The diplomatic journey between Pakistan and Tajikistan started formally in 1992 when the disintegration of the Soviet Union from the face of the earth and the emergence of a Soviet-less international political order changed the geopolitical outlook of the world. The rise of unipolar designs of the international system allowed many states to alter the conventional designs of their foreign relations and caused the initiation of cooperative ties between various nations. Under the broader umbrella of the post-Soviet international system, Pakistani and Tajik leaders started viewing each other as close diplomatic partners and ideologically Muslim brothers. Pakistan took the initial step and recognized the independent status of Tajikistan after the end of the decades-long period of the Cold War. After immediately sending a message of peace and cooperation to Dushanbe, Pakistani authorities laid the foundations of ambassadorial services in Tajikistan in 1993, and began the multidimensional diplomatic activities formally in Tajikistan in 1994. The Tajik government designed reciprocal steps and initiated an era of close diplomatic cooperation and political coordination with Pakistan. The initial developments created a brief layer of reciprocal visits between both states and facilitated their governments exploring multiple collaboration areas. A smooth growth of cooperation between Islamabad and Dushanbe resulted from the active political communication between the mainstream leadership of both nations. Evidencing from the recent visit of Tajikistan’s president to Islamabad in 2021, the two governments agreed to enhance their existing fields of collaboration and signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the strategic dimension. It was the one-on-one meeting of the Pakistani prime minister and Tajik president in which the two leaders agreed to improve their defence ties with the help of Pakistan’s weapon development capabilities. The meeting of high officials focused on different levels of political coordination beyond the traditional domain of defence and mainly focused on exploring bilateral trade and investment opportunities. The discussion on the maintenance of collaborative interaction between the business communities led political authorities from Islamabad and Dushanbe to sign various MoUs in the field of trade and investment. The two governments understood the significance of their societal connections in trade collaboration.
The strategic dimension of the collaboration is inherited in two Joint Declarations on the Road to Strategic Partnership for Regional Solidarity and on the Strengthening the Road to Strategic Partnership. Both initiatives aim to materialize the common strategic plans for attaining high levels of peace, prosperity, and progress in their respective regions. The contemporary collaborative vision for achieving objectives of peace, prosperity, and progress in their respective regions is primarily linked to the early days of their cooperative foreign relations. In other words, the genesis of contemporary Pakistan-Tajikistan ties can be traced back to a Protocol signed by the governments of both states for establishing a Tajikistan-Pakistan Joint Commission in 1992. Thus, the initial phase of cooperation between Islamabad and Dushanbe formed an Intergovernmental Commission and started regular meetings of this Commission. This Commission is smoothly functioning with the support of other bilateral political platforms such as the Bilateral Political Consultation forum. The recently held fifth meeting of this forum in 2021 upgraded the scope of close political coordination between the two foreign ministries on various issues of global politics. In this meeting, the formal representatives developed a common understanding of upholding the economies of each other through resuming air links and connecting business communities. The discussion in these meetings also slightly touched upon cooperation in the energy sector.
For a proper understanding of emerging trade ties between Pakistan and Tajikistan, the recent rounds of multileveled meetings between Islamabad and Dushanbe have formed several layers of bilateral collaboration, such as an agreement signed between the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tajikistan and the Quetta Chamber of Commerce and Industry and academic collaboration between the Tajik Technical University and the Indus University of Pakistan. The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry from Pakistan followed the Quetta Chamber of Commerce and Industry and agreed on a similar MoU with its Tajik counterpart. Creating active connections between the chambers of commerce of both states is a positive outcome of business consultations. This communication is supported by the Joint Business Council (JBC) which is facilitating the two business communities in participating in both states’ trade and investment exhibitions. The JBC has become a central business forum for the growth of multilayered Pakistan-Tajikistan trading ties. Additionally, three MoUs were signed between both nations, between Tajikistan’s Agency for State Financial Control and Struggle against Corruption and Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau, the Tajik Institute of Languages and the National University of Modern Languages of Pakistan, and the Technological University of Tajikistan and Comsats University Islamabad. These MoUs extended the scope of cooperative bilateralism and encouraged both governments to diversify their collaboration in various other dimensions. The political authorities of both nations have signed agreements in the Field of Prevention and Liquidation of Emergency Situations, Art and Culture, and International Road Transport. To further extend bilateral political communications for strengthening the areas of common interests, foreign affairs ministries of both counties developed cooperative ties. The 2021 visit laid the foundations of various strategic initiatives like the adaptation of the Joint Declaration on Next Step in Building Strategic Partnership for Regional Solidarity and Integration. These agreements fostered the existing levels of collaboration in diverse domains while encouraging the two-sided government authorities to overcome their historical gaps in bilateral ties.
The vision of regional connectivity has also become an essential dimension of evolving cooperative interaction between the governments of Pakistan and Tajikistan. Pakistan’s decision to join the Chinese global design of creating an international network of various trading routes and roads has been appreciated by the Tajik government which has clearly communicated its interest in getting benefits from Pakistan’s Gwadar and Karachi Ports as this will provide global connectivity to the landlocked Central Asian nations. The access to Pakistan’s ports will provide the shortest trading route to Tajikistan and allow Dushanbe connect its economy to the outside world. Tajik leaders have highly appreciated the value of creation of a ‘trade corridor’ between Beijing and Islamabad while showing their intention for availing the facilities of ports for trade. While receiving the offer of Islamabad for considering the potential of the corridor economic project, the Tajik government shared its vision for increasing business and commercial relations with Pakistan. In response to Dushanbe’s appreciation of Pakistan’s integration in the broader Chinese global plans, Islamabad also analyzed Tajikistan’s National Development Strategy (NDS)-2030 on positive grounds. The quest for participating in different multilateral frameworks of the international community has led political authorities from Islamabad and Dushanbe to play an actively supportive role in the intergovernmental setups of the world. The cooperation on these multilateral platforms supported Islamabad and Dushanbe’s bilateral efforts to improve their interstate interactions. As a result, the Pakistan-Tajikistan cooperation fostered their bilateral collaboration under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). During the last year’s meeting between the heads of both states, Pakistani authorities positively viewed Tajikistan’s chairmanship of SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Such developments enabled the leaders of both nations to explore future opportunities for promoting peace and development in regional and global affairs.
The recent wave of a global health crisis with the outbreak of corona disease convinced Islamabad and Dushanbe to remain determined in fighting against this humanitarian crisis, which has since become an international catastrophe. The two-sides’ shared vision focused on the need for worldwide cooperation and solidarity against the crisis while emphasizing the supply of essential medical equipment and vaccine to other countries with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO). Furthermore, On the question of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajik leaders are trying to develop a shared understanding of different regional and extra-regional affairs which will enhance the mutual areas of concern between both governments. Additionally, under the shadows of regional connectivity, a hydroelectricity power project, formally known as Central Asia-South Asia Power Project (CASA-1000), has been signed between Islamabad and Dushanbe. The CASA-1000 is fundamentally planned to transfer surplus hydroelectricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The quadrilateral CASA-1000 project was finalized and signed in 2016 while having a target of completing it in 2023. Given the above scenario, it can easily be maintained that the government of Pakistan and Tajikistan are determined to strengthen the existing pattern of their cooperative bilateralism in various dimensions. The quest for diversifying their collaboration in various unexplored dimensions has led them towards an enhanced framework of close political coordination and diplomatic cooperation. To achieve this objective, the leaders have decided to start regular interaction of their mainstream political authorities under broader parliamentarian relations. Through conducting regular visits in the form of formal delegations, the two leaders are strong-minded in creating a close economic and strategic collaboration with the help of strong political coordination. The increasing cooperation between both states is based on mainly economic objectives in which Tajikistan is interested in Pakistan’s attachment to Chinese greater international trading plans, whereas Pakistan has adopted a new approach for maintaining its foreign relations with other states. The contemporary approach of Islamabad’s foreign policy is purely a reflection of a transformation from geopolitics to geo-economics which has started pushing Pakistan towards economically developed and socially prosperous states. This framework of Pakistan’s political mindset propelled it to attain a multileveled collaboration with Tajikistan, which could be the best economic partner and close diplomatic supporter in contemporary world politics. However, despite having all these developments in different sectors, Tajik and Pakistani leaders under different political administrations remained inefficient in achieving the desired levels of bilateral cooperation. Because of evolving regional and global pressures on both states, the mainstream leadership from Islamabad and Dushanbe must evaluate their cooperative bilateralism on pragmatic grounds while rationalizing their quests for developing multidimensional ties in different fields. There is a need to explore the potential avenues of collaboration in deficient dimensions, mainly the energy sector. Furthermore, the people-to-people contact will provide opportunities for foreign direct investment. An exclusive focus on improving educational and cultural collaboration also needs to consider the potential areas that could enhance the Pakistan-Tajikistan cooperative ties. Apart from creating new avenues for discovering the unexplored dimensions of cooperation between Islamabad and Dushanbe, the existing mechanisms of Joint Working Groups could provide sufficient avenues for boosting collaboration between states in diverse areas.
