Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s visit to Pakistan earlier this month served to highlight once again the importance of the brotherly relations between the two countries for safeguarding their security, promoting their economic progress, strengthening cultural ties and deepening regional cooperation.

It is worth recalling that Iran was the first country to recognise Pakistan soon after its independence in 1947. It was with good reason that Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah told Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan, the first Pakistan ambassador to Iran in May 1948 that he was going to a country which already had the most cordial relations in the world with Pakistan.

Historically, relations between the two countries can be divided into four distinct phases. The first phase, which lasted till 1979 when the Shah was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, witnessed the blossoming of a very friendly relationship between the two countries marked by cooperation in political, military, economic and cultural fields and the alliance of the two countries with the West.

The advent of the Islamic Revolution in Iran saw the beginning of a new phase in Pakistan-Iran relations. While bilateral relations remained close, marked by exchange of high-level visits, the animosity between the Iranian Islamic revolutionary government and the US, the Iran-Iraq war and sectarian differences added complicating factors to Pakistan-Iran relations.

In the third phase, starting from the 1990s, Pakistan-Iran bilateral relations suffered badly from the Afghan civil war in which the two countries supported opposing sides. Pakistan-Iran relations were also adversely affected by sectarian terrorism in Pakistan, in which several Iranian officials lost their lives.

About two weeks before I arrived at Tehran at the end of September 1997 to assume charge as Pakistan’s ambassador to Iran, five IRGC cadets, who were........

© The News International