ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called on federal and four provinces governments on Thursday to set aside political differences, curtail development spending and redirect resources toward agriculture, public goods and transport as the country confronts the economic fallout from the global oil crisis triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
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Pakistan opens talks with Afghanistan in China, insisting on action against militants as border operation continues
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has sent a senior delegation to the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi for talks with Afghan officials aimed at resolving escalating border tensions, even as its military continues a counterterrorism operation inside Afghanistan, the Foreign Office said on Thursday.
Pakistan dismisses Afghan claims of border fence removal as fabricated
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday rejected as “fabricated and devoid of facts” claims by the Afghan Taliban that barbed wire fencing along the Durand Line had been dismantled or was being removed.
Dar reaches Beijing to align with China on push for US-Iran talks
ISLAMABAD: China said Tuesday it would strengthen strategic coordination with Pakistan over the Iran crisis, as the deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar arrived in the Chinese capital for a one-day visit aimed at advancing diplomatic efforts to end the month-old war between the United States, Israel and Iran.
Pakistan’s public debt breaches legal limits, hit Rs80.5 trillion as ratio worsens to 71.7 percent of GDP
ISLAMABAD: The government conceded to parliament on Monday that public debt rose sharply in fiscal 2025, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio higher and increasing the per-capita burden even as fiscal consolidation measures took hold and macroeconomic conditions improved.
India plots false-flag border operation using Pakistani detainees to mask diplomatic reversals
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security officials said on Monday that Indian authorities are preparing a false-flag operation against Pakistan that would press innocent Pakistani detainees held in Indian prisons — including Kashmiris who crossed the border inadvertently — into service as unwitting participants in a staged border provocation.
Pakistan’s top leaders hold talks on security and economic strain amid regional tensions
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday to review the country’s national security situation and the array of economic and energy challenges confronting Pakistan, the President’s Secretariat said.
A court acquits two lawmakers and six others in 2018 triple murder of political family in Sindh
KARACHI: A court on Monday acquitted all eight defendants — including two members of the Sindh provincial assembly — in the 2018 assassination of a former union council chairman from the Pakistan Peoples Party and his two sons, ruling that prosecutors had failed to present sufficient evidence to secure convictions.
FM Dar, injured in a fall, heads to Beijing to consult on month-old US-Iran conflict
ISLAMABAD: The deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, will leave Tuesday for an official visit to China even though he suffered a hairline fracture in his shoulder the day before, the Foreign Office said Monday, a move that officials described as a measure of how seriously Islamabad takes its deepening role in trying to end the fighting between the United States and Iran.
Pakistan says US and Iran have expressed confidence in it to host direct peace talks
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said on Sunday that both Washington and Tehran had voiced confidence in Islamabad’s ability to facilitate talks aimed at ending the Middle East conflict that has engulfed the region since US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.