Afghanistan and ECO Summit
THE 15th Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Summit was held on 28 November 2021, in Ashgabat Turkmenistan, a neighboring country of Afghanistan.
Under the theme “Into the Future Together” the 15th Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Summit reviewed the activities of the Organization and adopted “Ashgabat Consensus for Action” as the outcome document.
Besides reviewing ECO programs and activities, the summit meeting held the Mid-Term Review of ECO Vision 2025 adopted in 2017 during the 13th summit held in Pakistan.
The trend of the formation of inter-governmental regional organizations became popular during the last three decades of the 20th century.
Many of them are defunct practically and their existence is only for annual meetings, summits or inter-governmental regional deliberations. We can cite SAARC in the list which just has their existence without any role in regional development or prosperity.
The ECO was established in 1985. Pakistan, Iran and Turkey are its founding members while Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan joined it after their independence from the former Soviet Union.
Though the Afghanistan issue was not incorporated in a statement posted o the ECO website after the Summit nor in the post-Summit press conference but President of Pakistan Arif Alvi, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced the need of a proactive move from the Islamic world as well as from neighbours to get Afghanistan out of a serious economic situation that is converting into serious humanitarian crisis.
Neighbouring countries must understand the fact that any humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan would have fallout in the entire region and the policy of “wait and see” would not help anybody.
No regional country has recognized the interim government of the Taliban but only expressed concern over the looming humanitarian crisis.
This is understandable that no country is ready to take the burden of recognizing the Taliban regime due to their questionable previous regime in which Afghanistan became the hub of anti-social and terrorism-related elements central Asian neighbours faced the brunt of such elements.
The civil war in Tajikistan had links with Afghanistan while the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan that allegedly planned attacks inside Central Asian countries had exposed presence in Afghanistan during the previous regime of the Taliban.
However, one should consider this point that over two decades had passed and Taliban had learned a lot from previous mistakes and they need trust and confidence of neighbouring countries to handle an economic disaster in Afghanistan.
Good intentions expressed by the neighbouring countries must be translated into practical actions to help the Afghans in dire need before more infant deaths are reported from rural areas.
Pakistan is standing with Afghan people in this hard time of their history and it has changed trade tariffs to support Afghan export and also provided direct humanitarian support but this is not enough and collective efforts can halt economic meltdown and neighbouring countries must come forward to support the Afghan population.
Although Afghanistan is not a member of ECO; its theme “Into the Future Together” looks impossible if Afghanistan is unstable and if Pakistan has no future.
I believe that a prosperous future of countries bordering Afghanistan is only possible when the future of Afghanistan is secure. Afghanistan is the passage that links Central Asia with South Asia, a market of around a population of two billion people.
Peace is not only the requirement of Pakistan rather for all neighbouring countries to get dividends of this peace.
—The writer is Prague-based Foreign Affairs expert.
