Pakistan

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar was on Friday elected chairman of the Economic Cooperation Organisation’s Council of Ministers (ECO-COM), according to the Foreign Office (FO). The ECO was founded as the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) in 1964 by Pakistan, Iran and Turkiye, before it changed its name in 1985. The organisation’s website states that its purpose is “to create amenable and conducive conditions for the continued promotion of sustainable economic development in the region”. The 10 member states include Pakistan, Iran, Turkiye, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. According to an FO statement, today’s meeting of the COM was held virtually and Dar underscored the body’s important role in fostering prosperity, economic integration and connectivity in the region. “He reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to the ECO Vision 2025 and expressed Pakistan’s intent, as incoming chair of the ECO COM, to work closely with member stat...

The Foreign Office (FO) said on Friday that the current ceasefire with Afghanistan was not a “traditional” one but contingent on whether any terrorist activity took place against Pakistan from the neighbouring country’s soil. Relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban are at their lowest point in the four years since the group came to power. Border crossings bet­ween the two countries have remained closed since October 11 and trade has been at a standstill following ground fighting and Pakistani airstrikes across their 2,600-kilometre frontier that killed dozens on both sides in the worst fighting since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of Kabul. Following those clashes, Turkiye and Qatar stepped in to mediate. The first round in Doha produced a fragile ceasefire, while the second, also in Doha, ended with only a general agreement to develop a mechanism for verifying compliance and a decision to continue talks. The third round concluded without any concrete agreement. The situation deteriorated again followi...

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