...are you kidding me?? Even you know your invitation is farce...if you were serious you would have involved us much earlier.....and why CPEC...we were denied even a simple land route to Afghanistan......why even land route...you failed to even give us an MFN status...a status that we gave you in 90's and something that every country gives to every other country...look we can both look south or state facts...you take a pick...
The invitation was not completely serious, but its clear the establishment were floating the idea out there to see if India would pick up on it, If India did agree to join then I dont see why Pak government would oppose that. Even the Chinese foreign minister commented on it, recommending India join the project.
I believe Pakistan opted for CPEC for economic reasons
Obviously
What you mean by stagnant...Obviously there is a limit of things you could do when Iran was heavily sanctioned...you can track the progress of proposed gas pipeline b/w Iran and Pakistan and you will know what I mean.. ....Just for records Chahbahar port b/w India and Iran was first coined in 2003
true, there are limits with what you could do with Iran, but why would India care? In addition to Chabhar, you were buying Iranian oil and Gas in large quantities, in fact Iran had become India's second largest oil supplier during the height of sanctions. Only under pressure from Americans did that number (allegedly) decrease in 2012. The Iranian deal lifted the sanctions on Iranian oil, and allowed Iran to trade with the rest of the world, but like I said India was already doing those things anyway and was trading with Iran via the ACU
now CPEC was formally announced in 2014(correct me if i am wrong here)... ..so are you saying that our leadership thought about Chahbahar port in 2003 so that they can isolate you in 2016 against a project announced in 2014??
The idea of a China-Pakistan corridor and port has been floating around since the creation of Pakistan, but only really pushed for officially by the Musharraf and Zardari governments. In 2013 agreements were signed, and Chinese officials announced the funding in 2014.
Now, Chabahar by that point was already operational, but Indian projects had been going at a slow pace, suddenly in mid-2016 when Gwadar Port was about to become operational Modi went to Iran and tried to revive the project.
Is it really that far-fetched to think that in the year and a half since the Chinese announcement that India suddenly thought that they need to get Iran on their side? What else explained the sudden spike in awareness, and attempt to revive Iran ties?
Now here is more logical explanation...we always wanted access to central Asia...one has to be nuts to not expand your trade horizons...With Pakistan an arch rival and AF under Taliban there was a deadlock and once they were ousted it makes perfect sense that our leadership started talking to Iran about Chahbahar in 2003
If its really about trying to trade with Central Asia, you realise thats impossible that is without indirectly supporting the Taliban? They control a significant amount of Afghanistan and are holding the highways connecting Iran to Afghanistan. Any kind of risk assessment would have immediately thrown this project out since logically it goes against interests to fund the Taliban, but instead India decides to announce it again in 2016 with the Afghan government on the brink of defeat? Clearly there are bigger intentions behind it.
Regardless linking this to Pakistan isolation is absurd...
Its what your own people are saying. Every single time Indian media talks about Chahabar they also bring up CPEC, all your political analysts call it a 'counter' to Gwadar port, even your politicians are demanding that funding be expedited because Gwadar was already functional.
Why continuously bring up Gwadar and CPEC whenever Chahabar is mentioned if that ridiculous 'isolation policy' is not the purpose?