Pakistani Ambassador to Russia Faisal Niaz Tirmizi gave his second interview to TASS this year in early August after his first one in mid-May. Apart from reaffirming Pakistan’s interest in mediating between the US and Iran, he elaborated more on bilateral relations, the subject of which will be reviewed in this piece since it builds upon his vision of connectivity-centric ties that he shared in his earlier cited interview. Tirmizi started off by referencing the aforesaid as its relates to his hopes for an overland trade corridor.
He also said that Pakistan has already begun the process of negotiating a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union and expects it to conclude within two years. This is now possible ever since Pakistan established official diplomatic ties with Armenia last year after being the last country in the world to do so, which it held off on for so long out of solidarity with Azerbaijan in the context of the Karabakh Conflict. Tirmizi then talked about Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s upcoming trip to Russia.
It was postponed from early March due to the Third Gulf War, and he now expects the visit to take place sometime in the fall. According to him, “active cooperation in the economic, social, and media spheres will be established. Between eight and ten agreements will be signed.” Closer AI cooperation is also on the horizon due to Pakistan and Russia being two of the many founding members of the newly formed Global Organization for Artificial Intelligence Cooperation that’ll be based in China.
Another of Tirmizi’s efforts to further expand bilateral ties concerns his work to increase the number of Pakistani students in Russia and the number of Russian tourists in Pakistan in order to strengthen people-to-people ties. On that topic, he also expressed hope that cultural exchanges through fashion, art, music, and cinema will grow. All in all, his interview was a standard one without anything significant being shared therein, with the most important part concerning their connectivity-centric future ties.
The long-envisaged trade corridor between them across Afghanistan is no longer politically viable due to the spree of cross-border strikes by both sides, respectively Taliban-backed terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Pakistan aerial and artillery retaliation against terrorist camps in Afghanistan, ruining their relations. Nevertheless, Timirzi talked a bit about the South Caucasus in his interview in connection with Pakistan recently recognizing Armenia, so connectivity with Russia via Iran and Azerbaijan is certainly possible.
For that to happen, however, Pakistan would need to remain militarily neutral in the event that the Third Gulf War re-erupts with full force. That might be extraordinarily difficult due to its role as a “Major Non-NATO Ally” and its mutual defense obligations to Saudi Arabia per their pact from September 2025. If Pakistan participates in hostilities against Iran, then the abovementioned alternative trade corridor with Russia through Iran would also be rendered politically unviable, thus undermining Tirmizi’s vision.
Overall, Pakistani-Russian relations remain promising, and Sharif’s rescheduled trip to Russia sometime this fall will take their relations to the next level. Their trade is still far below its full potential, but their difficulty in pioneering overland logistics at scale is only part of the problem, the other being that Pakistan remains under heavy US influence and is thus reluctant to clinch a major energy deal with Russia. If that ever changes, then bilateral ties would flourish, but nobody should get their hopes up.
