TEHRAN, DEC 6: Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, visits neighboring Iran this week in an apparent bid to improve their long turbulent ties over Afghanistan, drug smuggling and killings of Iranians in Pakistan. Musharraf is scheduled to arrive in Tehran on Wednesday and meet President Mohammad Khatami on Thursday in the highest-level contact between the two countries since the general overthrew Pakistan's elected government on October 12. Musharraf will also meet Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Pakistani leader will discuss political issues as well as economic ones, including the possible construction of an Iran-India gas pipeline through Pakistan, a foreign economic specialist in Tehran said. Iran has called for a return to democracy in Pakistan, while at the same time maintaining relations with the new authorities. Iranian-Pakistani ties have long been strained over their support for opposing sides in their mutual neighbor, Afghanistan. Islamabad is a major backer of the Sunni Muslim fundamentalist Taliban militia, which controls most of Afghanistan. Shiite Muslim Iran says the Taliban are a barbarous stain on Islam and blames them for the murder of eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist during the militia's seizure of the northern Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif last year. Iran supports the ousted Afghan government of Burhanuddin Rabbani and assists the Afghan Opposition, especially its Shiite component. But since Musharraf's coup, Islamabad has issued reconciliatory-sounding statements. Pakistani ambassador Javid Hussain was quoted by the Iran News November 11 as saying the two countries should coordinate their Afghan policies "to encourage the restoration of peace." "We realise that Iran has important national interests in Afghanistan," he said, adding that "Pakistan, like Iran, wants peace restored in that country as soon as possible." He also said that trials of suspects in the killings of several Iranian diplomats and citizens in Pakistan in recent years "will be accelerated under the new government." Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi expressed cautious optimism November 8 about ties with the new military regime. "One should welcome the changes," but in the end, "everything depends on the ultimate policies of this government," Kharazi told the official IRNA news agency. In a message Hussain delivered to Khatami November 7, Musharraf underlined the importance of "bilateral cooperation for regional stability." In the past, Tehran has criticised Islamabad as a follower of the United States and accused it of not doing enough to stop drug trafficking across their borders. Iran has declared all-out war on drug smugglers, most of whom use the country as a transit point between growing fields in Pakistan and Afghanistan and markets in Europe. Tehran says the Taliban encourage drug production and smuggling and benefit from it. However, Iranian-Pakistani cooperation on fighting drugs has improved, said Antonio Mazzitelli,head of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme in Iran. The October coup in Pakistan did not affect this cooperation, Mazzitelli added. Irfan Parviz, an Iranian expert on relations with Pakistan, said in an article in Sunday's Tehran Times that "Iran is a well-wisher of the Pakistani nation." This is "despite the Pakistani rulers' clear attitude towards the stone-age Taliban, their lack of intention to set up a true democracy and respect internationally accepted human rights in their country as well as their biased attitude towards their neighbors," he wrote. Musharraf will visit Bahrain Wednesday before traveling on to Iran later in the day. He has already visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait.
