Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani presidents held a trilateral summit in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Sunday, May 24 to discuss such regional issues as fighting against violent extremism, terrorism and cross-border drug smuggling, which impeded the economic development of each country.
The "Tehran Declaration", inked by three presidents at the end of the meeting, agreed to the expansion of security, political and economic cooperation among the three neighboring states, according to the official IRNA news agency reports.
REGIONAL SECURITY & COMBATING DRUG TRAFFICKING
Leaders of the three nations, namely, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Pakistani President Asef Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai reached consensuses on such tough issues of immediate importance during their talks as uprooting terrorism, extremism and pernicious influences from drug abuse.
The financing of terrorism through illicit drug trafficking has been louted as a major headache problem since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Since then, opium production in Afghanistan has skyrocketed and is now the main economic activity in the country.
Afghanistan accounts for more than 90 percent of the world's heroin supply. Its heroin moves to markets in Europe, the Middle-East and the United States through Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia, as recently as the 1980s when about 40 percent of the heroin sold in U.S. streets came from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
An annual opium harvest in Afghanistan is worth up to approximately 3 billion US dollars, almost half the country's official gross domestic product (GDP). As poppy fields overflow in Afghan fields and heroin and other related drugs have inundated the country, the drug control situation in Iran is very grim and stark at present.
Iran's initiative to convene a trilateral summit is presumably motivated by its own intention to counter the influence of the U.S. and enhance its own status in the region, acknowledge some critics and political analysts.
As a very great regional power, Iran has a certain significant role to play in the Mideast, and Central and South Asia affairs. Even the U.S. needs its help to fight the Afghan war, and President Barack Obama has adopted a positive approach, and readjusted the US policies toward Iran and talked of engagement with the country after coming to office in January this year.
In another development, refugee crisis has been increasingly aggravated and intensified in the region. Home to 3 million Afghan refugees, both Iran and Pakistan are ready to step up efforts to send them home.
Iran has reconstructed public utilities buildings, such as school, hospital, road and bridge in western Afghanistan. Moreover, it has invested a total of more than 500 million US dollars in Afghanistan for the joint production of automobiles and other vehicles.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has been borne greatest pressures incurred by the war on terror. As Taliban forces intensified their attacks, the borderlines between Pakistan and Afghanistan have turned increasingly blurred. Taliban in Afghanistan often uses a relative lull in fighting to resist and consolidate its forces in Pakistan's tribal areas, while Pakistani extremists often cross the border into Afghanistan to fight alongside their Taliban "brothers".
To date, Pakistan troops have been encircling Taliban in a number of strongholds across the Swat Valley and, consequently, 2 million Pakistanis have fled their homes over fighting or been displaced. And Taliban forces now put up resistances and have engaged themselves in bayonet fight in street battles with Pakistan soldiers in Swat valley.
On the part of Afghanistan, it has been very active with regard to international conferences on reconstruction assistance to provide for it. At such conferences, it would seek various kinds of reconstruction assistance and help from friendly nations and could also display the resolve of the Afghan government in reconstruction and its cooperative attitude to international community.
CONVERGENCE, SIMULTANOUS PROGRESS OF COOPERATION
The one-day trilateral meeting of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani heads of state held on Sunday involves two different setups: One is featured by the initiative of Iran, the regional power, and the other is guided or at the helm of the U.S., the vanguard or path-breaker of the war on terror, With their joint convergence points to focus on the regional partners of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the pair of two old adversaries, Iran and the U.S., are nevertheless at the ends of both setups.
As a matter of fact, security and stability of Afghanistan is not only a vital prop for the anti-terrorist policies of the U.S. but a matter of vital importance to its neighboring Iran and Pakistan. Both existing summits pose very good platforms for cooperation. And such cooperation will be the greatest, most fortunate thing for inter-regional peace and stability if it would not be confined only to Pakistan and Afghanistan, but has the participation of all parties concerned.
By People's Daily Online and contributed by PD resident reporter in Pakistan Meng Xianglin
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