H.E. Mr.Jemal Beker Abdula
The cooperative ties between Islamabad and Addis Ababa have been refreshed by the Ethiopian government’s decision to open the embassy in Islamabad on May 11, 2023, to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two states formally.
The Ethiopian government is highly ambitious to join Pakistan’s efforts to explore the untapped potential of African nations in the contemporary international system parallel to singing various bilateral cooperative agreements with different African nations.
During the inaugural ceremony of the embassy, the two-sided formal state authorities showed their commitment to working together in various areas of common interests, such as climate change, immigration, security and terrorism.
While appreciating the Addis Ababa’s choice of formalizing the ambassadorial relations with Pakistan, and the government of Pakistan accepted the need for boosting multidimensional cooperative ties between Pakistan and African nations.
The Islamabad-based decision-makers also acknowledge that the Ethiopian and Pakistani governments have common economic and development problems in the contemporary global order.
In the welcoming remarks, Pakistan’s state representatives dubbed the opening of the embassy in Islamabad as a new beginning in the bilateral cooperative interactions between the two states, and it has facilitated the two-sided leaderships in expanding the conventional patterns of their bilateral interactions in the diplomatic, political, economic, and social dimensions.
On a reciprocal basis, the representatives of Ethiopia showed a keen interest in their government in deepening bilateral cooperation with Islamabad, which would enable the leaders of both sides to diversify their formal ties.
In this way, the decision to open an embassy in Pakistan has marked a significant development in the bilateral ties, and it exhibits the increasing values of diplomatic, trading, and cultural relations between the two nations.
In cultural terms, the common ideological foundations provide solid grounds for the growth of cultural ties, and the prominent role of Ethiopians in Islamic history creates solid connections between Islamabad and Addis Ababa.
The recent development of opening an embassy in Islamabad cannot be divorced from a comprehensive account of Pakistan-Ethiopia relations, which started in the 1950s when the leaders of both nations realized their shared values of mutual respect and bilateral cooperation in diverse directions.
The major turn in the bilateral ties occurred in 1973 with the formal opening of the Pakistan’s Embassy in Addis Ababa under Islamabad’s broader framework of Engage Africa Policy.
The Engage Africa approach focused on various African states and preferred Ethiopia as one of the prominent nations appropriate for establishing collaborative connections with Islamabad in the areas of agriculture, education, and healthcare.
In this way, the governments of both nations witnessed a brief era of strong political coordination, diplomatic support, and economic cooperation throughout history. However, Addis Ababa’s launching of formal ambassadorial services in Islamabad started facilitating the two-sided governments in exploring new platforms for trading collaborations. The signing of the Bilateral Trade Agreement in May 2023 is important in this regard because it led the two-sided business communities to establish their partnerships.
The trading connections have already been established between both nations, and these relations made Pakistan a recipient of Ethiopian red kidney beans, chickpeas, pulses, hides and skins, tea, and coffee, whereas the Ethiopian government receives Pakistani healthcare products, chemicals, machinery, sugar, rice, and textiles.
In this way, a smooth trading connection based on a commendable volume of import-export enabled the Pakistani and Ethiopian governments to recognize their potential for working together for mutual trade benefits. It has widened the scope of trade and investment opportunities between their respective business communities while encouraging their mainstream leaders to consider each other as reliable business partners in the contemporary international system.
The quest to augment the existing level of people-to-people contact between the two nations has led Ethiopian and Pakistani formal state authorities to take several practical measures to deepen the two-sided societal acquaintances. To overcome the challenge of certain social disconnects, direct flights between Karachi and Addis Ababa have started recently, and it enabled Pakistan to receive four direct Ethiopian flights. The launching of direct flights plays a creditable role in promoting the mutual interests of two states to foster economic growth with the promotion of bilateral cultural ties. This step started leaving positive impacts on the shared interests of trade, tourism, and pleasant societal contacts between Islamabad and Ethiopia. Direct flights create easy chances for business professionals and potential investors to travel between both states while availing the benefits of reduced travel time and reasonable costs.
In this way, the Ethiopian government has proved that its wealth of precious natural resources needs appropriate welcoming destinations around the world, where Pakistan has become an exception due to the non-existence of major disagreements between Addis Ababa and Islamabad. The absence of any political difference between two-sided governments provides additional support to the ongoing mutually collaborative patterns of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Ethiopia. Through developing special formats of regular interactions between Islamabad-based diplomatically community and leading circles of Pakistan’s business communities, the government of Ethiopia has conveyed an explicit message for fostering commercial ties between Pakistan and Ethiopia with the support of regular cultural and social contact. Therefore, the ongoing designs of political communication, diplomatic support, economic cooperation, and social interaction validate the determination of Addis Ababa to work with Islamabad in various unexplored dimensions of their bilateral cooperation. This pattern of multidimensional cooperative bilateralism contains substantial potential for convincing two-sided leadership to work on certain strategic extents. The strategic communication between both states has already witnessed teamwork in the training and capacity-building programs of United Nations international peacekeeping operations.
Addis Ababa and Islamabad have established a comprehensive framework to enhance their bilateral partnerships in various areas. The leadership of both nations is strongly committed to expanding their collaborative potential. Over the past two years, since the opening of ambassadorial services in Islamabad, significant progress has been made, indicating that the two nations could work towards a more stable and cooperative future. This cooperation aligns with their shared goals of social prosperity and economic development.
Writer is Special Envoy and Ambassador Extraordinary of Ethiopia to Pakistan