ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly passed the federal budget for the next fiscal year on Tuesday after the opposition walked out of the chamber following an acrimonious debate in which the opposition leader accused the government of trampling the constitution and his speech was blacked out on state television and social media.
top-politics
Pezeshkian heads to Islamabad on state visit as US-Iran peace roadmap takes shape
ISLAMABAD: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will arrive in Islamabad on Tuesday for a state visit at the invitation of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said, as Tehran and Washington began a 60-day push toward a final agreement to end months of conflict following the first formal round of US-Iran talks in Switzerland.
Four Muslim powers urge swift conclusion to US-Iran talks in Switzerland
ISLAMABAD: Four of the Muslim world’s most significant powers have publicly committed themselves to the fragile diplomatic enterprise seeking a permanent end to the US-Iran conflict, urging a “swift and successful” conclusion to technical negotiations even as delegations from Washington and Tehran gathered on the shores of Lake Lucerne on Sunday for the most substantive talks since an interim agreement was reached earlier this week.
PM Sharif, army chief Munir join fragile US-Iran diplomacy in Bürgenstock
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, the country’s army chief and chief of defence forces, flew to Switzerland through the night on Saturday for technical-level talks between the United States and Iran due on Sunday — the first formal negotiations since a memorandum of understanding ending nearly four months of conflict between Washington and Tehran was signed on 18 June.
Pakistan says US-Iran technical talks set for Sunday in Switzerland
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Office said Saturday that technical-level talks between the United States and Iran will be held Sunday in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, as the two sides prepare to begin working through the details of a landmark peace framework signed earlier this week despite Tehran reimposing its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the day over Israel’s continuing strikes on Lebanon
Pakistan shoots down Afghan drone as Kabul’s ‘airstrike’ claims dismissed as propaganda
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has shot down an Afghan Taliban drone that crossed into its airspace on Friday, hours after Kabul claimed its air force had struck Islamic State hideouts inside Pakistani territory — claims Islamabad dismissed as deliberate disinformation from a regime it accuses of sheltering the very groups it claims to be targeting.
Pakistan raises alarm over India’s 17 water projects designed to give it ‘hydro-hegemony’ over the Indus
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has accused India of actively pursuing at least 17 infrastructure projects on the Indus river system designed to give New Delhi “the tools for hydro-hegemony” — a striking charge that escalates a diplomatic confrontation over the two countries’ six-decade-old water-sharing agreement.
Six militants killed in twin counter-terrorism raids across Pakistan’s restive northwest
PESHAWAR: The security forces have killed six suspected militants in two separate intelligence-led operations across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday night, as authorities pressed ahead with a campaign against the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan network.
Shutter down strike chokes Azad Kashmir capital as PM accuses protest leaders of forcing crisis
MUZAFFARABAD: The prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir placed the blame for more than two dozen deaths squarely on a banned civil rights alliance on Tuesday, as the territory entered the eighth day of a crippling shutdown strike that has left residents of its capital struggling to find food, medicine and fuel.
Pakistan takes a bow as US-Iran accord draws global praise
ISLAMABAD: The flags at the United Nations were barely dry on the announcement when the congratulations began flooding in — from Wellington and Tokyo, from Ottawa and Berlin, from Riyadh and Rome. By Monday evening, it was clear that the preliminary agreement between Washington and Tehran to end more than three months of war had touched something in the international community that even the most seasoned diplomats had not dared expect: genuine relief.