Author: Uzma Ehtasham

By Uzma Ehtasham For a government that insists it will not leave its people alone in difficult times, there is rather too much solitude to go around. The prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, convened a review of public relief measures this week, during which attention turned to petroleum stockpiles. Disbursements, he announced, had begun for public transport and freight vehicles. The economically vulnerable, he said, would receive relief swiftly. However, the gap between such assurances and the lived reality of ordinary Pakistanis grows ever more unbridgeable with each passing day. Consider the arithmetic of abandonment. First came an increase of 55…

Foreign Office remained tight-lipped on a fresh peace initiative, while the army chief engaged in high-level talks with international and Iranian envoys, signalling cautious momentum in the unfolding diplomatic process By Uzma Ehtasham ISLAMABAD: Iran and the United States received a plan ‘Mesaaq-e-Islamabad’ drafted by Pakistan to halt ongoing hostilities, offering a potential pathway to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to a source familiar with the matter. The proposal, shared with both capitals late on Sunday, outlined a two-tier approach that began with an immediate ceasefire and envisaged a broader, comprehensive settlement to follow. The source described ‘Mesaaq-e-Islamabad’ as…

By Uzma Ehtasham KARACHI: Indonesia brought the curtain down on its three-day pitch to the Pakistani travel industry on Sunday, declaring its presence at the 2026 Pakistan Travel Mart a clear success, as tour operators reported surging demand for everything from Bali’s surf breaks to Yogyakarta’s ancient temples. The delegation, led by the Indonesian consulate in Karachi, worked the floor of the Karachi Expo Centre from 3 to 5 April, pressing flesh and swapping brochures with dozens of local agents hungry for fresh outbound destinations. By the time the last exhibitor began dismantling their stands, officials said the effort had…

Foreign Office remained tight-lipped on a fresh peace initiative, while the army chief engaged in high-level talks with international and Iranian envoys, signalling cautious momentum in the unfolding diplomatic process By Uzma Ehtasham ISLAMABAD: Iran and the United States received a plan ‘Mesaaq-e-Islamabad’ drafted by Pakistan to halt ongoing hostilities, offering a potential pathway to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to a source familiar with the matter. The proposal, shared with both capitals late on Sunday, outlined a two-tier approach that began with an immediate ceasefire and envisaged a broader, comprehensive settlement to follow. The source described ‘Mesaaq-e-Islamabad’ as…

By Uzma Ehtasham There is a peculiar kind of theater to South Asian diplomacy, a shadow-play of suspicions and slights where every debt repayment is read as a betrayal and every trade deal as a realignment of civilizations. Last week, Pakistan’s foreign ministry did something that, in a saner world, would be entirely unremarkable. It confirmed the return of a $2bn deposit to the United Arab Emirates. The money, held under commercial agreements, was maturing. The State Bank of Pakistan was simply paying it back, as any borrower eventually must. The spokespeople spoke of fraternal ties, of trade and defence,…

By Uzma Ehtasham US President Donald Trump has escalated his rhetoric into open vows of carnage, declaring in a 20-minute address to the nation that America will unleash fiercer assaults on Iran within two to three weeks, vowing to crush all military targets and hurl the country back to the Stone Age. On the other side, Iran’s operational commander-in-chief, Amir Hatami, addressed a high-level military conclave, ordering headquarters to monitor enemy movements with forensic precision and stay vigilant every instant. In stern tones, he warned that any ground incursion would be met with overwhelming force—no invaders would return alive. Trump’s…

By Uzma Ehtasham At a moment when the Gulf and the wider Middle East appear to hover on the edge of a precipice, the joint diplomatic intervention by Ishaq Dar and Wang Yi offers something that has been in conspicuously short supply: a measured, structured attempt to slow events that are rapidly slipping beyond the grasp of conventional statecraft. Their meeting in Beijing, far from the theatre of immediate confrontation, carried the unmistakable weight of urgency. It was less an exercise in protocol than an effort to impose coherence on a geopolitical landscape increasingly defined by volatility and reflex. What…

By Uzma Ehtasham There is a peculiar silence that falls over a city after an explosion. It is not the silence of peace, but the quiet of shock, of counting the living and mourning the dead. In Quetta, on Saryab Road, that silence was recently broken by the crack of gunfire and the percussive thud of a hand grenade. When the smoke cleared, a civilian lay dead. A dozen more, among them police officers tasked with protecting the very fabric of the state, were left wounded. In the Kharan district of Balochistan, the narrative was one of resolve rather than…

By Uzma Ehtasham The ongoing hostilities in the Middle East have now passed the one-month mark, yet the bloodshed shows no sign of abating. Far from being a contained conflict, this violence is dragging not only the region but the entire world into a quagmire of instability. Once again, the world is being scorched by the flames of war. The waters of the Gulf are stained with blood, the skies are choked with smoke, and fear is seeping into the very arteries of the global economy. On one side stands American hubris, a superpower convinced of its military supremacy as…

By Uzma Ehtasham In the theatre of South Asian diplomacy, few exchanges carry the weight of accusation that Pakistan and India routinely level at one another. The ritual is familiar: a statement from New Delhi, a rejoinder from Islamabad, and the international community, weary of what it perceives as perpetual acrimony, turns its gaze elsewhere. However, when Islamabad’s foreign office spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, issued his rejoinder this week to recent Indian statements, the substance of his rebuttal deserved more than the usual dismissal as cross-border point-scoring. Beneath the familiar rhetoric lies a truth that the international community has for too…