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Historical Overview
Pakistan's strategic location, its predominant religious affinity, critical geographical proximity as well as continuous efforts by Pakistani expatriate population to develop infrastructure and other institutions have made it a natural ally of the neighboring Gulf States. There are socio-political factors that make Pakistan the obvious choice for the Gulf rulers to safeguard security of their countries, defend territorial integrity and promote their economic well-being on long term basis. Amongst these Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Saudi Arabia and UAE traditionally have the closest relations with Pakistan in all spheres of interests. In terms of strategic ties, Pakistan acts as a strategic balancer in the Iranian context. Gulf States look towards Pakistan to contain Iranian hegemo- ny up to a limit. Also, China needs Pakistan because Pakistan's influence in GCC can provide it transit trade route for western Xingjian region that will be an energy corridor to import oil from the Gulf region, naval facilities on the Arabian Sea coast to protect its energy supply lanes from the Middle East.
Specifically, when it comes to military relations, Pakistan maintains close military ties with all Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman and Bahrain. Pakistan provides extensive support, arms and training for the military establishments of these countries. Pakistan helped Kuwait in its freedom war in 1991 against Iraq. The defence cooperation between Bahrain and Pakistan is very strong; Pakistan had been collaborating since long in their defense sectors, particularly air and naval forces along with procurement of defense related equipment. uAE has benefited from Pakistan's military process since 1968 and its air force had Pakistani air force officers as chiefs of air staff on many occasions.
over the past few decades, Pakistan has also improved its relations with the State of Qatar. The relations started with late president Zia-ul-Haq when he visited Qatar in mid 80s and an era of cooperation was initiated in many fields of interests including economic, and defence sectors. Pakistan and Qatar signed a defence pact in May 2010 where several agreements were signed for purchase of arms and ammunitions, military training and defence related Mous. Moreover, a deal was signed by the two countries in December 2015 in which Qatar agreed to supply Pakistan with $16 billion of LnG...