ISLAMABAD, DEC 3 /DNA/: Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday that multilateralism was “under assault” as stability in South Asia faced various threats, and stressed the need for regional cooperation.
Speaking at an event in Islamabad, Dar said, “Multilateralism is under assault and the institutions of global governance are often criticised for the acts of omission and commission of a few states driven by unilateralist impulses.”
Referring to the four-day conflict with India in May, Dar said, “In 92 hours, the Indo-Pakistan war had the potential to escalate to far more dangerous levels.
“All this is of a large malice in which states have increasingly resorted to the use of force to settle disputes with disregard for international law and the purpose and principles of the UN Charter,” he added.
The deputy premier noted that “emerging technologies, transnational terrorism and hybrid warfare, including misinformation campaigns, continue to challenge the stability”.
Dar, also the foreign minister, pointed out that “major power competition is a defining feature of our times”, with military, technology, trade, tariff and resource rivalries intensifying.
However, the deputy PM said, Pakistan “opposed bloc politics and zero-sum approaches and consistently stressed the imperative of cooperation rather than confrontation”.
“We have underscored the indispensability of dialogue and diplomacy, of peaceful settlement of disputes, and of international cooperation and solidarity.”
As an elected member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2025-2026 term, Pakistan was “engaged in vanguard efforts to promote international peace and security”, Dar highlighted.
Speaking on South Asia, Dar said the region had a complex security environment as it comprised “three geographically contiguous nuclear powers with complicated relationships” — an apparent reference to Pakistan, India and China.
“Major regional states boast of some of the largest armed forces in the world. There is a continuous buildup of conventional and nuclear arms and regular induction of destabilising weapons systems.
“Strategic stability is delicate, among other things, by some dangerously ill-conceived war-fighting notions in the nuclearised environment,” he added.
Pointing out that sustainable peace had eluded South Asia for the past 78 years, Deputy PM Dar said there were “escalating disputes over resource sharing, particularly on river waters, as exemplified by India’s illegal and unilateral announcement on the Indus Waters Treaty” in April.
“There are pervasive interstate differences and some of the longstanding unresolved political disputes, like Jammu and Kashmir, continue to threaten the peace and stability in the region,” Dar highlighted.
During his speech, Dar also noted that the rise of extremist ideologies, political populism, democratic backsliding and Islamophobia were “negatively impacting the globe and causing upheavals in unprecedented ways”.
