Facing a severe domestic economic collapse and mounting civil unrest, Pakistan once again recycled its traditional rhetoric on the Kashmir dispute during a high-level meeting with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in Islamabad.
According to official statements, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar used the engagement to brief the UN Chief on the Jammu and Kashmir issue, reiterating Islamabad’s long-standing demand for a peaceful resolution in accordance with United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.
However, top intelligence sources state that Islamabad is using the Kashmir narrative as a political smokescreen to deliberately divert international attention away from its escalating homegrown governance failures
PAKISTAN’S INTERNAL CRISIS
Pakistan is currently grappling with a severe macroeconomic crisis marked by astronomical inflation, unsustainable debt levels, and rigid IMF-mandated austerity measures. Headline inflation remains stubbornly high, driven primarily by a 33% surge in electricity tariffs and a 39% hike in domestic fuel prices, which have severely crushed household purchasing power.
The country’s energy sector is under intense structural stress, with the power-sector circular debt breaching PKR 1,675 billion, directly violating strict fiscal targets agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Compounding these domestic woes are external vulnerabilities; the IMF projects Pakistan’s current account deficit to widen up to $4 billion, leaving the national exchequer highly exposed to external geopolitical shocks and rising global oil import costs.
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Rather than utilizing high-level UN engagements to address systemic economic instability, rampant inflation, and deep-seated local tensions within Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), the country’s leadership remains focused on external posturing.
Security and diplomatic analysts note that Pakistan’s diplomatic apparatus remains trapped in a time warp. By rehashing decades-old, obsolete arguments at global forums, Islamabad is systematically ignoring the ground realities of the developmental transformation taking place within Jammu and Kashmir.
