ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s deputy prime minister has said the newly signed defence pact between Islamabad, Riyadh and Ankara is open to any country in the region prepared to uphold its founding principles, as he moved to clarify the scope of an agreement struck at a moment of acute regional tension.
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Pakistan truckers halt nationwide freight in fuel-price standoff
KARACHI: Pakistan’s goods transport industry ground to a halt Saturday as thousands of truckers began an indefinite nationwide strike, escalating a dispute with the government over daily diesel price adjustments, toll charges and tax policy that threatens to disrupt supply chains across the South Asian nation.
Muslim world hails trilateral defence pact as landmarks across Saudi Arabia lit up in celebration
ISLAMABAD: Landmarks across Saudi Arabia were lit up with the flags of Pakistan, Türkiye and the kingdom over the weekend, as reaction continued to pour in to a new trilateral defence pact binding the three nations to treat an attack on any one of them as an attack on all.
PML-N eyes two-thirds majority in AJK as third-phase vote nears
BAGH: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz needs just six more seats to secure a two-thirds majority government in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah said on Saturday, addressing a rally in Bagh ahead of the third phase of elections in the region.
“This was murder”: second autopsy finds gunshot wound to back, broken bones on Mir Raza Ali
KARACHI: A second post-mortem examination carried out on the exhumed body of a young Karachi businessman has found that he was shot from behind and suffered extensive injuries consistent with a violent assault before his death, according to a preliminary medical report described by the family’s lawyer and cited by local broadcasters on Saturday.
Army captain martyred as forces say seven militants killed in northwest operation
ISLAMABAD: An army captain was martyred, and seven militants were killed during an intelligence-based operation in Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said on Saturday.
IBA graduate’s exhumation set for today after Sindh restores original medical board amid backlash
KARACHI: After a day of confusion, accusation and last-minute reversals, the Sindh government on Friday evening backed down and reinstated the original eight-member medical board assigned to exhume the body of Mir Raza Ali, the young businessman whose death last month has become one of Karachi’s most closely watched cases. The exhumation, abandoned on Friday morning amid furious objections from Ali’s family, is now due to go ahead this morning.
Mecca’s new pact is a hedge, not a break — and the Gulf knows the difference
Diplomatic language is designed to bore you into missing what’s actually being said, and Friday’s Mecca Joint Defence Agreement is a case in point. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have promised that an attack on one is an attack on all — words borrowed almost wholesale from Nato’s founding charter — and every official statement that followed insisted, with slightly too much enthusiasm, that this is nothing like Nato at all. No shared command. No standing force. No clarity on what any of the three has actually agreed to send when the phone rings. Saudi Deputy Minister Rayed Krimly went out of his way to say the pact was not a military axis, not a sectarian bloc, and had nothing to do with nuclear ambitions.
Pakistan delivers back-to-back fuel price cuts as Iran war keeps oil markets on edge
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan cut retail fuel prices for the second consecutive day on Friday, trimming petrol by 2.20 rupees and high-speed diesel by 1.50 rupees per litre, as the country’s new daily pricing regime absorbs a Middle East oil market whipsawed by the nearly six-month-old war between the United States, Israel and Iran.
Iran and Oman agree shipping framework for Hormuz, but blockade remains in place
ISLAMABAD: A general framework of understanding between Iran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz has been agreed, an Iranian official said on Friday, though the full text will not be published until it clears approval from senior figures in Tehran.