Priya Aditi
Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif invitesTurkey to join the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) on Wednesday, transforming it into a trilateral arrangement so that all three cordial nations could reap its benefits.
Sharif made these remarks during the christening of the fourth MILGEM-class corvette warship PNS Tariq, which was inducted into the Pakistan Navy fleet at the Karachi Shipyard.
Initiated in 2018, the MILGEM project envisioned the construction of two corvettes in Pakistan and two in Turkey for the Pakistan Navy. Vice President of Turkey Cevdet Yilmaz also attended the ceremony.
Shehbaz stated that turning the multibillion-dollar infrastructure project into a trilateral agreement would bring regional prosperity and empower people through the finest facilities, including education and health care.
The prime minister emphasised, “I believe all three countries can benefit from the potential of the CPEC, which has been a tremendous success.”
Pakistan and China describe their relationship as “all-weather,” whereas Pakistan and Turkey, both Muslim-majority countries, have close bilateral ties.
Sharif also emphasised the need to connect Karachi’s Port Qasim to the CPEC-built Gwadar port in Balochistan.
Pakistan needed to establish linkages between the Karachi and Gwadar ports because Gwadar was about to become a business hub for the country as well as the region, as a result of the increasing demand on Port Qasim in Karachi.
The CPEC is an ambitious USD 60 billion project that, according to Islamabad, will transform Pakistan by improving its infrastructure, energy, industrialization, socioeconomic development requirements, and people’s standard of living.
The CPEC is a route of infrastructure projects spanning 3,000 kilometres between the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s northwest and the Gwadar Port in the western Pakistani province of Balochistan.
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India has objected to China’s construction of the CPEC pipeline through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
