14th Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) summit was conducted virtually on Thursday, March 4th, as Pakistan’s Imran khan chaired it and head of states from Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan shared their views on ECO cooperation and plans.
Imran khan presented six-points agenda to achieve the common objectives of ECO and for that, he emphasized the fact that respective countries must rapidly recover from economical and health crises.
While briefing ECO about the latest developments regarding the Pakistan-Turkey-Iran joint railway link project, Premier Khan also highlighted the importance of the planned Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan railway link.
He added that the inclusion of Afghanistan in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will be a vital opportunity for both countries to enhance their financial condition.
President Ashraf Ghani added from his side that Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a regional hub and will link all its neighboring countries to each other.
Ghani stress on the fact that how Afghanistan can achieve long-awaited peace by utilizing the current Intra-Afghan peace dialogues with Taliban and regional stakeholders.
Taking Pakistan into account, he describes Pakistan’s role as ‘significant’ in the ongoing peace dialogue as, according to Ghani, Pakistan will be the second country after Afghanistan to be affected if dialogues fail.
Pakistan is one of the founding members of ECO alongside Turkey and Iran as it was formed in 1985 in Tehran with the aim of regional development through close cooperation. It was initially named Regional cooperation for development (RCD).
Countries like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan joined in the 1990s, thus making it a 10-member summit platform.
