Pakistan paying heavy price for war in Afghanistan VC Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad
Islamabad:Because of its geographical location, Pakistan indeed suffered enormously in the past and is continuing to pay a heavy price for the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the uncertain nature of our relationship with India, says Dr Qasim Jan, Vice-Chancellor, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU).
Prof Jan stated this while inaugurating the International Conference on The State of international relations in Pakistan, organised by Department of International Relations, QAU, here Monday.
The vice-chancellor said that Pakistan is an extremely important country in South Asia and there cannot be two opinions about its geopolitical significance for the great powers. Pakistan borders China in the north and touched the Arabian Sea in the south. It shares long borders with India in the east and Afghanistan and Iran in the west, he said.
However, he said that Pakistans unique geopolitical reality also offers a lot of hope for future national prosperity, and regional peace and stability: The country is a potential bridge between resource-rich Central Asia and energy-hungry South Asia.
He said that the IR Department at QAU, with its highly competent faculty, made enormous contribution to the growth of this university as one of the premier national institutions of higher learning in Pakistan and the Muslim world in terms of research productivity, quality student enrolment and teaching standards at the Masters, MPhil and PhD levels. He said that despite being a geologist, he had keen interest in happenings around the world and how they affect Pakistans standing in the region as well as the world.
Dr Qasim Jan said that in the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan gained a pivotal position in world politics and any international academic activity that aims making sense of the state of international relations in the country is of crucial value for policymakers at home and abroad.
He said that the grand level theoretical debates in international relations, the state of international relations in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, teaching and research methods in the discipline, issues of conflict and cooperation in South and Central Asia, the War on Terror and its implications for Pakistan, the countrys relations with the United States, India and Iran, the conflicts of Kashmir and Palestine were all directly or indirectly relevant to the theme of the conference.
Earlier, in his welcome address, Prof Tahir Amin, Chairperson of IR Department, presented a history of the department. He said that conference sessions would focus on the empirical issues of IR confronting Pakistan and South, South West, and Central Asias.
He said that Pakistan finds itself sandwiched between conflicting pulls of competing world orders. He said that Obama Administrations Afghan-Pakistan strategy despite some of its positive aspects may push Pakistan towards chaos and instability as it had lot of continuity with the Bush administrations policy.
