Pakistan wants to link CPEC with CAS: minister

DUSHANBE: Pakistan, in line with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, wanted to expand the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Central Asian States (CAS), even before the issue of Afghanistan, a senior government official said.

Talking to newsmen in Dushanbe, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain expressed the hope that the situation in Afghanistan would improve.

Pakistan was offering access to the Gwadar Port, a strategic component in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to landlocked Central Asian countries in the hope of stimulating activity, he said.

Under the Trans-Mazar-e-Sharif Train and Road Network project with Uzbekistan, the minister said, Pakistan wanted to connect Gwadar and Karachi via Mazar-e-Sharif, first to Tashkent and then to Dushanbe and Kazakhstan.

After completion of the projects, all Central Asian States (CAS) would be connected by train and road, changing the entire regional scenario, he said.

Prime Minister Imran Khan discussed the Afghan situation in his meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, he said, adding that the prime minister was of the opinion that Afghanistan would either move towards stability or complete chaos.

“If the world inks an agreement with the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, it will not only benefit Afghanistan but the entire world,” he said, adding that leaving Afghanistan in the lurch right now would create problems.