The Prime Minister is currently on a visit to New York where he is attending the sessions of the United Nations General Assembly. He is accompanied by his team which includes the Foreign Minister and Foreign Secretary.

Before addressing the UN General Assembly, he had separate meetings with world leaders on the sidelines of the UN Assembly session.

He had meetings with the US Vice-President, the Iranian, Turkish and Afghan President and discussed matters of mutual interest, mainly the durable peace in the region where tension is mounting with each passing day.

The meeting with the US Vice-President was held on the request from the United States in which the US had decided to stay engaged with Pakistan to find amicable solution to the Afghan conflict. The Foreign Secretary reported progress in relations with the United States claiming that the ‘ice is broken’. ‘The relations with the United States are not frozen,’ the Foreign Secretary told newsmen in an informal news briefing.

Pakistan’s relations with the United State became strained after President Trump speech while announcing the policy on Afghanistan. Later, he also took a harsh stand against Pakistan in his recent speech to the UN Assembly in which he did not name Pakistan.

There is a strong resentment in Pakistan on the Afghan Policy in which the US President tried to induct India assigning a major security role in Afghanistan. This perception is unacceptable to Pakistan for obvious reasons.

Pakistan fought three wars against India and India is still striving to harm the interests of Pakistan and its people. There are dozens of disputes with India which are yet to be resolved amicably.

The US, on the other hand, wants to impose the leadership of India on the entire region by dragging it into the regional conflict in Afghanistan. India is far away from Afghanistan having no border links while Pakistan had a porous border with Afghanistan and housing a bigger Pakhtun Population than Afghanistan.

More than once, US President had accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists and facilitating the terror groups in the Afghan civil war. Pakistani denied these charges with usual force saying that the Pakistani security forces had wiped out all the bases and camps of terrorists from the Pakistani soil using force for years.

Pakistan lost lives of thousands of soldiers of its security forces, many more injured and the country suffered economic losses worth over hundred billion US dollars. Now the terrorists are based inside Afghanistan and they are using sanctuaries in attacking Pakistan and its security forces and the NATO Command and the Afghan forces failed to stop them from raiding Pakistan.

Pakistan expressed its willingness to help Afghanistan and others in jointly fighting the terror group operating inside Afghanistan. However, the relations between Iran and the United State are found more tense and hostile endangering peace and security of the region. In fact, US and Iran are in a state of undeclared war and the day-to-day skirmishes in the Gulf waters confirm this belief that both the countries are at the brink of war.

The US President had threatened to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal which Iran considers it as an act of war. US had strong reservations against Iran mainly its military role in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. There is a common belief that it was Iran that saved Syria from its total collapse in the on-going civil war.

This act of Iran offended the US. It is also believed that the US is trying to find a pretext to engage with Iran militarily after end of Syria conflict. The US will be helped by the Arab NATO and other allies in any military conflict between US and Iran. In such a case, the entire Iranian Balochistan on the border with Pakistani Balochistan will be the main ground of war.

Pakistan will face a very delicate situation when the Arab-Iran war escalates to the Mekran Coast bordering Jiwani, Gwadar and Ormara.