Senior RSS and military remarks in India have reopened the question of dialogue with Pakistan, exposing the limits of New Delhi’s hardline public posture. At the same time, Islamabad is trying to show that its relevance now extends beyond India, through crisis diplomacy involving Iran, the US, the Gulf, China and multilateral finance.
Pakistan’s growing diplomatic relevance has triggered a sharper narrative war, with foreign criticism, hostile media framing and domestic security incidents being used to cast Islamabad as unstable just as it re-enters the centre of regional diplomacy.
From South Waziristan to Balochistan and Punjab, Pakistan continues to confront terrorist violence that targets security forces and civilians alike. Yet while the world speaks loudly for other states' victims, Pakistani suffering too often receives silence, indifference, or selective concern.
As Pete Hegseth promises a historic review into the Fall of Kabul, the real accounting must extend beyond the airport chaos to the Afghan families left stranded in Pakistan by Western failure, delay and broken promises.
Will there be a second Islamabad Talks? Undoubtedly. The notion of an Islamabad Talks 2 have not materialised on cue, but that doesn't mean the process is dead. It means Pakistan holds the only channel both the U.S. and Iran can still use.
On the 88th death anniversary of Allama Iqbal, it is worth asking not only what he meant to the making of Pakistan, but what his ideas demand of the country now. As Islamabad tries to keep open channels between Iran and the United States, Iqbal’s poetry feels less like memory and more like instruction.
After years of being defined by debt scares, bailouts and economic uncertainty, Pakistan is showing signs of a broader recovery marked by renewed market access, stronger investor confidence, diplomatic relevance and momentum that isn't stopping anytime soon.
Pakistan’s emergence as the setting for U.S.-Iran diplomacy in 2026 was not a sudden stroke of luck but the return of an older strategic role; long before officials sat across from one another in Islamabad, Pakistan was already the back channel by which messages, assurances and ceasefires were carried.
While New Delhi continues to sell Pakistan internally as a terrorist state, Islamabad is increasingly positioning itself as a mediator, a bridge-builder and a country whose real strategic mission is peace.
At a moment when Asia has been pulled towards confrontation and uncertainty, Ishaq Dar has helped place Pakistan at the centre of the diplomatic effort for peace. In the past month, his steady, coalition-building approach has turned Islamabad into a credible channel for dialogue, resulting in the Islamabad Accords.
