Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is the first foreign dignitary to visit Pakistan after the installation of the PTI government. This reflects the fact that Iran is our neighbour and shares with Pakistan long and deep cultural and historical links. Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, with whom Zarif had meetings during his two-day visit, conveyed precisely their desire to cement these ancient ties and further strengthen mutual cooperation in fields as diverse as border security, trade, investment and other economic areas. These sentiments were reciprocated by the Iranian dignitary, who carried a message of fraternal greetings from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani who had earlier telephoned PM Imran Khan soon after his assuming office to congratulate him. The message also contained an invitation to PM Imran Khan to attend the upcoming Asian Cooperation Dialogue summit in Iran in October 2018. Both the PM and the Foreign Minister assured Zarif of Pakistan's unequivocal support in the troubled nuclear restraint deal Tehran had arrived at with the west in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The US has unilaterally withdrawn from the deal, re-imposed sanctions on Iran, and set a November 4, 2018 deadline for a complete cut-off of Iranian oil purchases by all countries, despite repeated International Atomic Energy Agency's reports that Iran has been complying with the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement in this regard.
While the atmospherics of Zarif's first visit after the new government's advent seem good, there is a need to revisit why relations with Tehran deteriorated or at least showed signs of strain over the past decades. Pakistan's earlier close relations with Iran when the Shah was on the throne obviously could not endure in the same manner after he was overthrown by Khomeini's revolution in 1979. That revolution soon revealed its fundamentalist bent under the rule of the Ayatollahs, which some Arab neighbours and other regional Muslim states regarded as a threat to their security on a sectarian basis. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been leading the charge on this basis that Iran intends to spread its sectarian ideology throughout the region and the wider Muslim world. Time and calmer reflection however has shown the hollowness of this idea. Neither can Tehran have dreamt of a Shia 'conquest' of the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim world, nor has it ever expressed any such desire. However, its concerns at best were to protect the interests of Shia minorities in Pakistan and elsewhere in the region. Further, Iran has stood firm against Israel and its cruelties against the Palestinians, while helping anti-western regimes like Bashar al Assad's Syrian one against western-backed attempts at regime change. This has obviously placed it in the anti-Saudi camp. That is the ticklish rub for Pakistan. Islamabad's incremental closeness to Riyadh since the 1970s has caused concern in Tehran and produced over time and now for the PTI government the challenge of conducting a balancing act between its ties with Iran on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies on the other. Former CoAS General Raheel Sharif's controversial assuming command of the Saudi multi-country military alliance has increased suspicion in Tehran about Pakistan's regional intentions. PM Imran Khan is on record as having expressed reservations regarding our role in this military coalition, perceived widely as an anti-Iranian one. That may have been one factor in Zarif's hurrying to Islamabad. But there are also various bilateral issues that require attention. Since last year, Pakistan and Iran have been cooperating on border security to prevent attacks from Pakistani soil on Iranian forces in the Sistan-Balochistan province bordering our Balochistan. Despite these efforts, only the other day another attack by the Jundullah group, said to be based in Pakistan, led to the killing of four militants and the wounding of three by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who have themselves in the past been the target of Jundullah's cross-border activities. More needs to be done if Jundullah is to be prevented from throwing a spanner in the works of Pak-Iran relations. Further, the stalled Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline has fallen a victim to global (now US unilateral) sanctions. This experience underlines the difficulties in forging economic cooperation with neighbouring Iran when it is subject to restrictions in trade, investment, etc., because of the sanctions that have already dented its currency and economy and threaten to cripple it after November 4, 2018. Pakistan will have to tread carefully and delicately to balance its ties with Iran against its ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and avoid any negative fallout of the sanctions against Iran.