On August 10, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba had a telephone conversation with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister extended his warmest greetings on occasion of upcoming Independence Day of Pakistan, wishing peace, progress and prosperity to the people of Pakistan.
The two ministers agreed to hold shortly the next round of political consultations between the foreign ministries after a five-year hiatus as well as the inaugural meeting of the Joint Ukrainian-Pakistani Commission on Economic Cooperation.
Dmytro Kuleba noted that Ukrainian traders exported the critically needed volume of grain to Pakistan during last year’s wheat crisis. The Minister emphasized that Ukraine is ready to increase its exports, as well as jointly with Pakistan develop trade with other countries in the region.
The ministers expressed a common desire to increase significantly the number of Pakistani students coming to study in Ukraine.
The parties exchanged invitations to pay visits.
Dmytro Kuleba briefed in details his Pakistani counterpart on an initiative of the Crimean Platform – a new international format to deliver a long-term vision of de-occupation of Crimea.
Ukraine and Pakistan enjoy mutually beneficial and almost problem-free relations. There is active engagement in different areas, especially in military and technical, trade and economic domains, in bilateral and multilateral formats between the two countries.
Pakistan is an important economic partner for Ukraine in the region of South Asia, ranking 37th among Ukraine’s trading partners in the world, and in the Asia-Pacific region – 7th in terms of exports in 2020.
Іn 2020, the trade turnover between Ukraine and Pakistan amounted to 411,814 million USD. In the first five months of 2021, the volume of trade in goods amounted to 132,563 million USD, marking a 58% increase.
Ukraine is a key trade partner for Pakistan too, being listed in the TOP-20 major importers of Pakistan for July 2020 – March 2021.
Ukraine and Pakistan`s cooperation in the military-technical field is highly productive and successful. Іn 1996 a multi-million dollar contract provided Pakistan with modern tanks as well as Ukrainian producers with long-term orders. Since then, almost 150 military-technical contracts worth more than 1.5 billion USD have been signed and implemented.
In 2021 the military-technical cooperation between our countries has further intensified – a 85.6 million USD contract for modernizing T-80UD battle tanks between the Pakistan Army and Ukrainian state arms conglomerate “UkrOboronProm” was signed in February. The implementation of this contract has started.
June 16, 2021, at the international exhibition “Weapons and Security 2021”, State Concern “Ukrspetsexport” sealed the second deal for modernization and repair of the IL-78 refueling aircraft for the Pakistani Air Force. The total amount of the program of repair and modernization of IL-78s of the PAF exceeds 30 million USD.
A weak point of Ukrainian-Pakistani cooperation remains the lack of high-level direct political engagement. The last official visit to Ukraine of Chief of Pakistan Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa in May 2021 reaffirmed strong and deeply rooted ties between the two countries in military and technical sphere. At the same time, the visit underscored the need to reinvigorate political dialogue to make bilateral relations more comprehensive and diversified.
The events of 2014 onward year dramatically challenged historical fate as well the geography of Ukraine. Russia’s land grab in Crimea accompanied by a hybrid aggression on the eastern borders of Ukraine in 2014 caused a major crisis in international politics, contributed to the erosion of authority of international organizations, jeopardized a rules based world order.
Since the Revolution of Dignity, for seven consequent years, Ukraine has been deterring Russia military aggression – full-scale modern hybrid war against Ukrainian statehood.
Looking for more effective and comprehensive strategies to restore territorial integrity of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Government introduced a new consultation and coordination political format – the Crimean Platform to elaborate practical approaches for achieving de-occupation of Crimea and ensuring its comeback to Ukraine.
The Platform will help to shape a strategic vision of the process of Crimea’s liberation, to consolidate efforts and resources of international community on the Crimean track, to ensure synergy intergovernmental, inter-parliamentary and expert levels.
The Platform’s activities are envisaged at four levels:
Heads of State and Government;
Ministers of Foreign Affairs;
Members of Parliaments;
experts.
The constituent forum of the expert network of the Crimean platform took place in Kyiv August 6, 2021. The expert network of the Crimea Platform united over 180 Ukrainian and foreign experts and scholars. The network will provide analytical and information support to the official level.
As concerns expert activities of the Crimean Platform in Pakistan, an online international conference “Crimea is Ukraine”, was held on June 23, 2021 by the Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution (IICR) jointly with the Embassy of Ukraine in Pakistan.
The First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Mrs. Emine Dzhaparova, permanent representative of the Ukrainian president in Autonomous Republic of Crimea Mr. Anton Korynevych, a Crimean human rights activist Lutfiye Zudiyeva as well as the Ambassador of Ukraine Mr. Markiian Chuchuk addressed the conference.
The Crimean Platform activities will be revolve around five priority tracks:
1) Protection of human rights and international humanitarian law – to ensure the international public outcry for human rights violations in Crimea to protect victims and prevent further violations.
2) Consolidation of non-recognition policy – to deliberate key elements of non-recognition policy of Crimea Occupation with a view to draw the “red lines” in this regard.
3) Effectiveness of international sanctions policies against the aggressor state and their extension – in the focus of the track will be gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, international humanitarian law; militarization of Crimea, Azov and Black Seas and other spheres.
4) Security of Azov-Black Sea region, including freedom of navigation – to discuss countering the activities of the Russian Federation that undermine the principle of freedom of navigation.
5) Mitigation of adverse economic and environmental impact of the occupation of Crimea on the region – to elaborate monitoring mechanisms of the long-term environmental threats to the Black Sea region and beyond, posed by the activities of the Russian occupation authorities, including destruction of nature reserves; illegal exploitation of industrial facilities; use of waste of potential chemical and nuclear hazard in major construction projects, endangering the waters of the Black Sea; realisation of major infrastructural projects without proper environmental risk assessment; renovation and modernisation of Soviet-era nuclear storage facilities.
The inaugural Summit of International Crimea Platform will take place in Kyiv on 23 August – on the eve of the 30th anniversary of Independence of Ukraine. For the time being high level representatives of 38 countries confirmed their participation in the Summit.
The inaugural Summit of the Crimea Platform is only a starting point for longstanding further day-by-day activities leading to the final goal – return of Crimea to Ukraine through peaceful means.
Vitalii Zaianchkovskyi – Counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
