{"id":10244,"date":"2022-04-26T15:22:53","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T12:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=10244"},"modified":"2022-05-11T09:59:01","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T06:59:01","slug":"with-pm-imran-khans-ouster-iran-loses-a-powerful-ally%ef%bf%bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/with-pm-imran-khans-ouster-iran-loses-a-powerful-ally%ef%bf%bc\/","title":{"rendered":"With PM Imran Khan\u2019s Ouster, Iran Loses a Powerful Ally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pakistan is going through a democratic transition after the vote of no-confidence against Prime Minister Imran Khan. Shehbaz Sharif, brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has been appointed to the prime ministerial office by Pakistan\u2019s Parliament. After he lost the majority in the Parliament, the departure of Khan was anything but smooth. He alleged that because of his visit to Russia to meet President Vladmir Putin amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States had conspired to topple his government by buying parliamentarians of his own party (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) as well as those belonging to opposition parties. This conspiracy theory gained traction among the Pakistani public, with Khan mobilising the masses to call for early elections.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have closely followed the political developments taking place in Pakistan, Iran was quick to express support for the embattled former Pakistani prime minister.  Khan\u2019s conspiracy theory was overblown in Iran\u2019s electronic and print media. The harmony between Khan\u2019s party and Iran\u2019s government is anything but surprising.  His anti-US position since the late 1990s, his opposition to the US war on terror, the US invasion of Iraq and US drone attacks inside Pakistan not only swelled his popularity inside Pakistan but also in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2011, prominent figures known for holding pro-Iran positions had joined Khan\u2019s party. Shireen Mazari, an analyst on foreign affairs who had previously never been elected to Parliament, became Khan\u2019s key confidant<\/a>e. She was the most outspoken anti-Arab and anti-US but extremely pro-Iran leader of Khan\u2019s party at the time. Others joined as well. Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who would become Pakistan\u2019s foreign minister under Khan\u2019s government, shared similar views to Mazari. Throughout Khan\u2019s tenure since 2018, Pakistan\u2019s relations with the United States, Europe and the Gulf states were far from cordial. Instead, on some occasions, Islamabad\u2019s bilateral ties with its traditional and time-tested allies reached the lowest depths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan\u2019s government improved ties with Tehran. Iran\u2019s foreign minister was the most frequent visitor to Islamabad and if it was not for the fear of US sanctions, a boost in economic trade and the sale of military technology were inevitable.  Since government ministers and advisors with pro-Iran positions predominantly surrounded Khan, Pakistan\u2019s isolation on the foreign policy front was inevitable especially among Gulf states.  However, there were some sticking points between Pakistan and Iran during Khan\u2019s tenure. The smuggling on the Pakistan-Iran border increased while the shared border was not sealed during the early and most critical phase of the coronavirus pandemic. Irritants like the arrest of returning Zeinabiyoun mercenaries to Pakistan and cross-border support for Baloch militants raised tensions between the two countries but did not prevent the commanders<\/a> of Iran\u2019s armed forces from paying multiple visits to Islamabad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that Shehbaz Sharif is the Pakistani prime minister, relations with Iran are likely to stay warm but we are unlikely to see government ministers embracing pro-Iran and anti-Arab positions.  In his maiden speech, Shehbaz Sharif acknowledged<\/a> the importance of relations with Iran and the need to improve economic ties while stressing the significance of relations with  traditional allies and partners such as China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE and other Gulf states. The current coalition government sits on a very thin majority; hence, it will not be able to make major foreign policy changes immediately, but it will surely be able to correct the course of bilateral relations. Islamabad\u2019s relations with the United States and the Gulf states are sure to improve, especially with Saudi Arabia given Shehbaz Sharif\u2019s and his brother\u2019s warm relations with the Kingdom, much to the  disappointment of Iran. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan is going through a democratic transition after the vote of no-confidence against Prime Minister Imran Khan. Shehbaz Sharif, brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has been appointed to the prime ministerial office by Pakistan\u2019s Parliament. After he lost the majority in the Parliament, the departure of Khan was anything but smooth. He alleged that because of his visit to Russia to meet President Vladmir Putin amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States had conspired to topple his government by buying parliamentarians of his own party (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) as well as those belonging to opposition parties. This conspiracy theory gained traction among the Pakistani public, with Khan mobilising the masses to call for early elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5968,3059,5969],"class_list":["post-10244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-ally","tag-imran-khan","tag-iran-loses-a-powerful-ally"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10254,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10244\/revisions\/10254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}