The participation by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in the two-day conference on terrorism held at Tehran on June 25 was invested with political symbolism as a mark of displeasure towards the United States. But Zardari’s return to Tehran within three weeks on a second visit on Saturday unmistakably carried the stamp of Pakistan’s “strategic defiance” of the US.
Equally, for the second time in three weeks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei received Zardari, signifying the high importance that Tehran attaches to the nascent signs of shift in Pakistan’s regional policies.
Saudi Arabia made a diplomatic demarche with Pakistan to dissuade Zardari from attending the Tehran conference in June. For the second time, again, Riyadh made a bid on Friday to convey its apprehensions over the Pakistan-Iran intimacy. Saudi
