Reaching out to Russia?

Neither Belarus nor Alexander Lukashenko is unknown to Pakistanis. "Belarus" is a name that means nearly the same as tractor since Minsk Tractor Works helped Pakistan establish a tractor facility in Karachi in 1962 while President Lukashenko is the absolute leader of the territorial part of post-Soviet Union Belorussia which constitutes the present-day Belarus although Stanislav Shushkevich was the first Belarusian leader who ruled Belarus from 1991 to 1994 and made concerted efforts aimed at achieving, among other things, personal freedoms and market economy only to be aborted by his successor Lukashenko.
It was in May this year that prime minister Nawaz Sharif welcomed Belarus President Lukashenko at the Nur Khan airbase. His two-day trip marked the first ever visit by a Belarus President to Pakistan. There are some questions that need plausible answers to inject clarity into the prime minister's visit to a seemingly not too important country: Why has a red carpet welcome and a Guard of Honor that prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif received from a smartly turned-out contingent of Belarusian armed forces in Belarus capital Minsk failed to attract an enthusiastic response from mainstream Pakistani media although it is the first-ever visit of any Pakistani prime minister to this former Soviet state aimed at exploring new avenues of co-operation with a particular focus on energy, trade and defence (a strong businesspeople's delegation is accompanying the PM)? Is it the failure of country's Foreign Office and PM's external affairs team to successfully sell his three-day trip by creating a hype of this tour that it truly deserves? Or, is Islamabad employing the strategy of keeping a low profile (KLP) instead of strategy of striving for achievement (SFA) in view of geostrategic political imperatives and challenges following the Ukraine crisis that is said to have triggered a new "Cold War" in the world, forcing China in particular to rejuvenate its foreign policy with a view to protecting and expanding its strategic interests and Islamabad is only complementing Beijing's policy paradigm by exercising good judgement and common sense?
Seen through this prism, the bilateral visits of two leaders give birth to one more question: Is Islamabad undergoing a period of courtship before it decides to formally bring about a qualitative but overt change in its relationship with Moscow as there is a near consensus among the students of Sovietology that Belarus is virtually a junkyard of the Soviet-era relics and symbols that Russia has preserved for posterity and it, in return, has been keeping a stagnant Belarus economy afloat through its largesse. Removing the Soviet symbols particularly the statues of Josef Stalin from the streets of its small and big urban centers, rural areas and the vast hinterland and shifting these to Belarus, Russia has sent a strong message across, that it has become free from the Soviet past only in a prudent manner for it is the wise thing to do under the circumstances following the collapse of a system based on authoritarian socialism. There is hardly any doubt about the fact that the Soviet Union had left behind a difficult legacy and the Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has effectively checked and curtailed the ambitions that the Russians had once nursed for creating a society based on liberal democracy in accordance with Western ideals, making Russia as complex as the former Soviet Union. It increasingly appears that Islamabad is reaching out to Moscow by standing on Chinese shoulders under an impression that the US' contribution to security in the region, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, is no longer indispensable and Islamabad has entered a new phase of relationship looking to Beijing as a bulwark against a growing Washington tilt towards New Delhi. There is, therefore, a strong likelihood that Vladimir Putin's visit to Pakistan-the first by any Russian President-will not be cancelled on account of a "calendar mix up" (Putin's scheduled Pakistan visit in May 2012 suffered last-minute cancellation) for both Russia and Pakistan have covered a long distance with a strong realisation that the future of their geopolitical and economic interests and objectives is strongly linked to China's foreign policy which is arguably characterised by rare grace and unapologetic self-honesty.
The writer is newspaper's News Editor