Socio-economic Cooperation between Pakistan and Central Asia: A Potential for Regional Prosperity

Abstract

A region of significant historical in nature, cultural, and geopolitical significance is Central Asia. It is a fascinating and active region of the world because of its advantageous position, historic civilizations, abundant natural resources, and different cultures. Central Asia is positioned to become more significant on the international scene as long as it keeps developing and seizing new chances. Pakistan has been enhancing its ties with Central Asian nations in recent times by means of high-level trips, cultural exchanges, joint ventures, and economic forums. Extending economic cooperation, fostering regional stability, improving people-to-people ties, and capitalizing on its advantageous location as an intermediate point between South Asia as well as Central Asia are among Pakistan's foreign policy goals in the region. The paper narrates the significance of socio-economic cooperation among the Central Asian Republics and Pakistan to secure the interests of Pakistan in the region and at the same time analyses various economic, defense and geo-strategic factors that have shaped Pakistan’s policy towards Central Asia. The secondary source data have been used to conduct the paper which portrays current geopolitics in Central Asia as an impediment and Afghanistan as bottleneck in Pakistan’s access to Central Asia.

Keywords:  Pakistan, Central Asia, Post-Soviet era, Joint projects, Cooperation, Foreign policy,            Interest, Strategic resources, Stability