Pakistani-Polish bilateral ties

News
February 21, 2022

International Event Jointly Organized by YOUTH DIPLOMACY FORUM and WARSAW INSTITUTE on Polish-Pakistani Relations

Pakistani-Polish bilateral ties: A brief report of today’s event jointly organized by the Youth Diplomacy Forum and the Warsaw Institute. The main purpose of both organizations is to enhance cultural diplomacy, youth cooperation, and most importantly to increase people-to-people contact, which was the dominant point of today’s discussion.

Keynote Speakers:

The keynote speakers were Ambassador Malik Muhammad Farooq, who is the current Ambassador of The Islamic Republic of Pakistan to Poland, Ambassador Piotr Andrzej Opalinski, who is the former Ambassador of Poland to The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and Dr. Syed Sibtain Shah, who is the assistant professor at NUML (National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad).

Read More about Milli Majlis: https://youthdiplomacyforum.com/2022/12/07/azerbaijan/

Key Points under Discussion:

The discussion was centered on the present relations and the way forward to strengthen the bilateral cooperation.

This year marks the sixty-long years of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Poland. Both countries have positive and friendly relations. Both the countries share a common history like resilience against superpowers, national mindset, and respect for family values.

Our bilateral ties have been improved in the last couple of years. Many agreements have been signed-in multiple areas more prominently in defense, tourism, trade, and the educational sector. Cross visits were very often among the officials before the pandemic. Pakistan gives more importance to Poland in the context of the European Union as Poland is one of the chief entities of the European Union and is the big business market that can help both the countries to boost their economic conditions.

The main topic of the meeting was bilateral relations between Poland and Pakistan. At the very beginning, Ms. Liliana Śmiech emphasized that diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on December 17, 1962, and asked the participants to give their opinion on the current development of the Polish-Pakistani ties. After thanking for the invitation to the event, Ambassador Farooq said that:

“This is the 60^th anniversary of the establishment of our diplomatic relations and we want this year to be memorable so that when we celebrate the 70^th anniversary of our relations, we will be able to refer to what we did and achieved during the 60^th anniversary. I believe that relations between the two countries have a long historical bond (…) and the current relations can be described as fluid and stable. They are developing gradually, however, there are no relations at the leadership level.”

A similar question was posed to H.E. Piotr Andrzej Opaliński, who assessed the Polish perspective on the Polish-Pakistani relations. Ambassador Opaliński shared the opinion of Ambassador Farooq and said that although the news about Polish-Pakistani ties are rather overlooked by the media, they can be described as very positive, friendly, and unique. After speaking about the historical ties between Poland and Pakistan, Ambassador Opaliński said that:

“The visit of President Pervez Musharraf to Poland in 2007 was the beginning of a more active partnership that was not possible during the Cold War. However, the first modern network, which we have initiated, was established in recent years and concerns military cooperation. Before the pandemic, reciprocal visits in this domain were very frequent. The second initiative is the contract won by the Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) in Pakistan, where it produces chips for Pakistani passports.” Moreover, the Ambassador highlighted the importance of contacts between the citizens of the two countries and noted that Polish universities are open to students from Pakistan.

The following question of the moderator concerned the economic sector that should play the biggest role in bilateral relations between Poland and Pakistan. According to Ambassador Farooq, the important products that Pakistan would like to present to Poles include fruits, especially dates and mangoes. However, moving on to the priorities, he said that: “It is very difficult to define one specific area of cooperation, but, in my opinion, the best one would be based on mutual and increased contact between people (…). Investment in education of university students is likewise very important.” In response to the same question, Ambassador Opaliński stated that the geoeconomic direction of the current strategy of the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is one of the opportunities for increased cooperation. He also noted the advantageous location of Poland in terms of being a potential export hub for Pakistan, allowing it to access the EU market.

Pakistan is eager to deepen the current ties and the area of focus is to increase people-to-people contact by increasing educational cooperation as students are always the best and long-term investment. Speakers also focus to enhance bilateral ties through modern cooperation as now the world is centered on geo-economics instead of geopolitics.

Closing remarks we were given by the president of Youth Diplomacy Forum Musawar Hameed Tanoli, he emphasized youth cooperation through cultural exchange programs, increase investment opportunities, and having excess to direct flights.

Pakistani-Polish bilateral relationship was discussed in a detail during the session jointly organized by the Youth Diplomacy Forum and Warsaw Institute. The YDF is committed to enhance bilateral especially organization to organization cooperation to develop people to people contact.