While President Ali Zardari's appeal for Dua and Istaghfaar (seeking Allah the Almighty's forgiveness) has been well received throughout the country in the context of torrential rains and the devastation caused by them, a broad cross-section of public opinion has hailed Prime Minister, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani's shuttle diplomacy, very much in consonance with President Zardari's approach to grow together, ie, with the support of multilateral co-operation among countries of the world, especially of the region.
PM Gilani's recent visit to Iran, following his visit to Kazakhstan, is a case in point. The visit in itself promises lot of dividends, which are not far away from now. Many good developments are attached to this visit including the understanding arrived at between Pakistan and Iran to boost bilateral trade and take it to the $10 billion mark. That's indeed very significant.
Another significant initiative that is on the anvil, is the import of 1,000 megawatts of electricity from Iran. This is one major step in the direction of minimisation of power outages and is reminiscent of similar steps taken during Benazir Bhutto Shaheed's tenure when IPPs (Independent Power Producers) were brought into the loop to address the ever-worsening power crisis. If one remembers those days, this initiative of BB Shaheed was criticised by some political, rivals who are now forced by hindsight to concede that BB Shaheed demonstrated exceptional farsightedness in this matter whose benefits we are reaping now. Imagine the intensity of power crisis had IPPs not been there.
In the case of 1000 MW from Iran, it is going to be another wise step on the part of Gilani government that is also reported to be seriously contemplating the launch of sizeable hydel power generation projects in the foreseeable future with the collaboration of foreign countries including our time-tested friend China, which is helping in the construction of Bonji Dam with state-of-the-art and unique tunnel technology (involving little area of land and thus lesser displacements of local population). Yet another significant development is both the countries' revived interest in completing the gas pipeline project which would be commissioned soon.
Now take into account President Zardari's recent visit to Saudi Arabia. That visit brought dividends too because during that visit, the President was able to regain the confidence and trust of another time-tested ally and supporter of Pakistan namely Saudi Arabia. Even at present, the nation has experienced a very good turn in Iran-Pak ties.