Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has left for New York for the 81st UN General Assembly (Express Tribune).
He will be there from 21 to 25 September, accompanying Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The schedule
– OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir – OIC Foreign Ministers’ Annual Coordination Meeting – high-level meetings on Palestine, including with the Group of Eight Arab and Islamic countries and the Global Alliance for implementation of the two-state solution – a Security Council briefing on artificial intelligence – a high-level meeting on pandemic preparedness – chairing the Economic Cooperation Organization Council of Ministers – bilateral meetings
What is conspicuously not on the published list
Yemen, the Makkah pact, and the Strait of Hormuz.
Those are the three files that have dominated Pakistani foreign policy for a fortnight, and none appears in the announced programme. Bilateral meetings are listed without counterparts, which is where such conversations would happen.
That is normal practice and not evidence of anything. It is worth noting because the prime minister is due to address the Assembly on 25 September specifically on Pakistan’s efforts to end the US-Iran war, and President Trump is reported to be meeting Gulf leaders in New York on the 24th.
The standing items
Kashmir and Palestine are the two subjects Pakistan raises at every General Assembly. The Kashmir item is framed around “the right to self-determination of the Kashmiris”.
What is not established
No bilateral counterparts have been named. It has not been reported whether Pakistan will seek any meeting with US or Iranian officials, or whether the prime minister’s address text has been finalised.
[Image: X via The Express Tribune]
