ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to declare Islamabad as the sister city of Minsk, the capital of and largest city of Belarus.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA), through the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), moved a summary in this regard to the Cabinet Division for final approval.

During Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff’s visit to Belarus a few months ago, both the governments agreed that Islamabad and Minsk should be made sister cities.

A CDA official said, “Under the agreement, there will be active cooperation between the two capitals in different fields, including municipal administration and youth development.”

He said Islamabad already had other sister cities, including Amman, Ankara, Beijing, Seoul, Madrid and Jakarta.

Other cities in Pakistan have over three dozen sister cities all over the world and Istanbul was the first to be declared a sister city of Lahore in 1975.

Shanghai, Beijing, Chicago, Houston, Istanbul, Manchester, Glasgow, Rome, Kuala Lumpur, Saint Petersburg, Dhaka, Beirut, Kolkata, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent are some of the important cities which are sisters of Pakistani cities.

The sister cities of Lahore include Istanbul, Sariwon, Xi’an, Kortrijk, Fez, C¢rdoba, Bukhara and Samarkand, Isfahan, Mashad, Glasgow, Chicago, Belgrade, Fresno, Krakow, Coimbra, and Dushanbe.

The sister cities of Karachi include Port Louis, Kolkata, Shanghai, Jeddah, Tashkent, Istanbul, Beirut, Dhaka, Chicago, Izmir, Houston, Manama, Pristina, Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur.

Abu Dhabi and Cairo are sister cities of Rahim Yar Khan, Manchester and Kobe are sister cities of Faisalabad while Redditch is a sister town of Gujar Khan. Urumqi and Makassar are sister cities of Peshawar and Rome and Konya are sister cities of Multan.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2016