Referring to the four-day conflict with India earlier this year in May, Dar said, “In 92 hours, the Indo-Pakistan war had the potential to escalate to far more dangerous levels.”
Ansar M Bhatti
ISLAMABAD: Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday that multilateralism was “under assault” as stability in South Asia faced various threats, stressing 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 earlier this year in May, Dar said, “In 92 hours, the Indo-Pakistan war had the potential to escalate to far more dangerous levels.”
He said that states had increasingly resorted to the use of force to settle disputes while disregarding international law and the principles of the UN Charter.
The deputy premier noted that “emerging technologies, transnational terrorism and hybrid warfare, including misinformation campaigns, continue to challenge stability”.
Dar said that India and Pakistan were “involved in a conflagration” that would have gone toward an “uncontrollable escalation”, adding that an “uneasy and fragile peace persists”.
“Pakistan demonstrated both in resolve and capability to thwart aggression and reinforce deterrence. The concept of a net security provider is buried,” he asserted.
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.
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”.
“Pakistan envisions a South Asia where connectivity replaces divisions, economies grow in synergy, disputes are resolved peacefully in accordance with international legitimacy and where peace is maintained with dignity and honour,” Dar said.
“We remain ready to work with all willing partners to help South Asia realise its immense potential,” the deputy premier affirmed.
Speaking further on South Asia, Dar said the region had a complex security environment as it comprised “three geographically contiguous nuclear powers with complicated relationships”.
“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.
“Sustainable peace in South Asia, however, requires more than maintaining strategic stability,” the foreign minister said, emphasising that a just and lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute remained essential.
Dar stated that the structured dialogue process between India and Pakistan has remained stalled for over 11 years.
“Other South Asian states have had their share of the see-saw relationship with our neighbour India,” he said.
“Burden of history, trust deficit, impulses of dominance and hegemony; domestic, political and electoral calculation; rise of populism and hypernationalism; and an ideological inclination for territorial expansionism add multiple layers of complexity to the regional landscape,” the deputy PM added.
He went on to highlight that the Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at China’s containment assigned the role of the net security provider to “one state in the region”, and that “friction” between it and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which was focused on connectivity, impacted the regional states’ efforts for peace and development.
‘Are we doomed to remain mired in confrontation and conflict?’
Deputy PM Dar also detailed various challenges that South Asia faces, including poverty, inequality, illiteracy, disease, malnutrition, income disparities, food insecurity, natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.
The region fares terribly low on most human development indices. South Asia also remains poorly integrated economically, with intra-regional trade hovering around 5 per cent,” he said, adding that the region was energy-deficient.
“Regional connectivity is woefully inadequate,” he said, pointing out that South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) — the only region-wide platform for economic cooperation — had “largely remained inactive for over a decade”.
Dar asked: “We South Asians need to think really hard. Are we doomed to remain mired in confrontation and conflict while other regions progress and prosper?
“The answer should be a clear ‘no’. The cumulative challenges of regional security, economic fragility and climate crisis are simply too grave to disregard.”
The deputy PM asserted that these challenges could not be tackled in an environment of “political fragmentation and fractured regional architecture”.
“To begin with, we must overcome zero-sum mindsets and foster an environment of dialogue, peaceful coexistence, economic interdependence and win-win cooperation,” Dar said.
