Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday that multilateralism was “under attack” as stability in South Asia faced various threats, and stressed the need for regional cooperation.
At an event in Islamabad, Dar said: “Multilateralism is under attack and global governance institutions are often criticized for the acts of omission and commission of a few states driven by unilateralist impulses.”
Referring to the four-day conflict with India in early May this year, Dar said: “Within 92 hours, the Indo-Pakistan war had the potential to escalate to much more dangerous levels.”
He said States had increasingly resorted to the use of force to resolve disputes without regard to international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter.
The deputy prime minister noted that “emerging technologies, transnational terrorism and hybrid warfare, including disinformation campaigns, continue to challenge stability.”
Dar said India and Pakistan were “engaged in a conflagration” that would have led to an “uncontrollable escalation,” adding that “a fragile and uneasy peace persists.”
“Pakistan demonstrated determination and capability to thwart aggression and strengthen deterrence. The concept of network security provider is buried,” he said.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs noted that “competition between great powers is a defining characteristic of our times”, with an intensification of military, technological, commercial, tariff and resource rivalries.
However, the deputy prime minister said, Pakistan “opposed bloc politics and zero-sum approaches and consistently stressed the imperative of cooperation rather than confrontation.”
“We have stressed the indispensableity of dialogue and diplomacy, of the peaceful resolution of disputes and of international cooperation and solidarity.”
As an elected member of the United Nations Security Council for the period 2025-2026, Pakistan was “engaged in cutting-edge 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 affecting the world and causing unrest 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 partners willing to help South Asia realize its immense potential,” the deputy prime minister said.
“Notions of war in a nuclearized environment”
Speaking further about South Asia, Dar said the region had a complex security environment as it comprised “three geographically contiguous nuclear powers with complicated relationships.”
“Major states in the region boast some of the largest armed forces in the world. There is a continuous buildup of conventional and nuclear weapons and the regular induction of destabilizing weapons systems.
“Strategic stability is delicate, among other things, because of some dangerously ill-conceived notions of war in a nuclearized environment,” he added.
Noting that sustainable peace had eluded South Asia for the past 78 years, Deputy Prime Minister Dar said there were “growing disputes” over resource sharing, particularly in river waters, as exemplified by India’s illegal and unilateral announcement of the “Indus Waters Treaty” in April.
“There are widespread inter-state differences and some of the long-standing unresolved political disputes, such as Jammu and Kashmir, continue to threaten peace and stability in the region,” Dar noted.
“However, sustainable peace in South Asia requires more than maintaining strategic stability,” the Foreign Minister said, emphasizing that a just and lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute remained essential.
Dar claimed that the structured dialogue process between India and Pakistan has remained stagnant for more than 11 years.
“Other South Asian states have had their share of a see-saw relationship with our neighbor India,” he said.
“The burden of history, the deficit of trust, the impulses of dominance and hegemony; the internal, political and electoral calculation; the rise of populism and hypernationalism; and an ideological inclination for territorial expansionism add multiple layers of complexity to the regional panorama,” added the deputy prime minister.
He went on to highlight that the Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at containment of China assigned the role of network security provider to “one state in the region,” and that “friction” between it and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which focused on connectivity, impacted regional states’ efforts for peace and development.
‘Are we condemned to remain mired in confrontation and conflict?’
Deputy Prime Minister Dar also detailed various challenges facing South Asia, including poverty, inequality, illiteracy, disease, malnutrition, income disparities, food insecurity, natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.
The region ranks terribly low on most human development indices. South Asia also remains poorly integrated economically, with intra-regional trade hovering around 5 percent,” he said, adding that the region was energy deficient.
“Regional connectivity is woefully inadequate,” he said, noting that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), the only regional platform for economic cooperation, had “remained largely dormant for more than a decade.”
Dar asked: “We South Asians need to think hard. Are we doomed to remain stuck 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 the climate crisis are simply too serious to ignore.”
The deputy prime minister stated that these challenges cannot be addressed in an environment of “political fragmentation and fractured regional architecture.”
“To begin with, we must overcome the zero-sum mentality and foster an environment of dialogue, peaceful coexistence, economic interdependence and win-win cooperation,” Dar said.
