Chabahar & Gwadar Competition: From Imagination to Reality

Since the signing of the tripartite agreement between Iran, Afghanistan and India on the development of cooperation on the Cahabar port, the assumption that the development of the port is in conflict with the Gwadar port has been widely discussed. In this paper, the development projects of the Chabahar and Gwadar ports are compared within the framework of regional integration theories. The key question is, what are the aims and positions of the host in the development process of the two ports of Chabahar and Gwadar, and what impact will the pattern of Iran-Pakistan relations have on the future cooperation of these two ports? The hypothesis is that in the current analysis of the Chabahar and Gwadar ports, the role of China and India has been cited as the only independent and influential variable, and the role of host countries such as Iran and Pakistan has received less attention; While the competition or cooperation between the two ports is largely influenced by the dynamics of the relationship between Iran and Pakistan. By incorporating the Iran-Pakistan relationship in analyzing the relationship between the Chabahar and Gwadar ports, different results show the capacity of cooperation between these ports. The research method of this article is qualitative with emphasis on documentary studies.