How to deal with the world

Now that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has his cabinet in place, it may be time to have a quick look at what each ministry has been handed -- poisoned chalice or a potential boon? One of the more pressing issues will be -- always is -- how Pakistan deals with the outside world. The man tasked to make our case to the world is Muhammad Ishaq Dar who on Tuesday formally became the 39th foreign minister of Pakistan. In his new role, Dar will have to take stock of all the challenges that Pakistan faces when it comes to foreign and diplomatic relations. But will he be able to break away from his past as Pakistan’s finance head? In his maiden speech as foreign minister, Dar reportedly focused more on the economic challenges that Pakistan faces rather than on matters related to foreign policy and media reports have suggested that our new foreign minister may want the Foreign Office to play a role in resolving Pakistan’s economic problems. The right way to go about all this would be to just let the new finance minister focus on resolving the economic crisis and for everyone else to focus on their own ministry. Perhaps the PM should be reminded of cooks and bad broths.

It is not like the foreign ministry won’t have work on its hands. Even though Pakistan’s foreign policy is mostly defined by a more security imperative, the foreign minister will have the task of being the face of Pakistan’s balancing act between the US and China. After PTI founder Imran Khan’s cipher conspiracy, the PDM government with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as foreign minister tried to mend relations between the US and Pakistan. Bilawal Bhutto was successful to quite an extent. Even then, the minister of state at the time, Hina Rabbani Khar, had suggested that Pakistan should stop maintaining a “middle ground” between the US and China as per leaked documents that were published in The Washington Post. Khar had argued that in order to preserve its partnership with the US, Pakistan would ultimately sacrifice the country’s “real strategic” partnership with China. This view is not new. There are many experts who believe the same. Dar will have to be extra tactful with the US since the PML-N government is in power and there are talks of revival of the CPEC projects that were put on the backburner during the PTI’s tenure. Dar would understand this better than most that solely one side cannot be picked over the other and a careful balance has to be maintained, as he has dealt with both countries as finance minister in the past.

Then there is the Middle East, and our ties with those countries have been quite strong. We live in a polarized world where there are two major conflicts raging on at the moment. Pakistan has always taken a pro-Palestine position historically and traditionally, which it continues to do even now. On the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Pakistan has remained neutral but former army chief General Bajwa did spell out our policy back in 2022 when this war escalated that “despite legitimate security concerns of Russia, its aggression against a smaller country cannot be condoned”. In recent months, we have seen incursions by Iran into Pakistani territory. Thankfully, Pakistan made sure there was no knee-jerk reaction. This will be another challenge for Dar as foreign minister – to artfully make sure that such serious issues are dealt with in a diplomatic manner. Another issue that some experts have raised is trade with India. Pakistan has spoken about normalizing relations with India if the Occupied Kashmir issue is resolved, especially after the Modi government’s decision to revoke the special status for the state of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). India under Modi has become so belligerent that at this moment resuming ties will be a tricky proposition. Overall, the foreign ministry has too much on its plate for it to encroach on someone else’s territory along the way.