As a sign of a thaw with India after PM Shehbaz Sharif offered dialogue with India, Pakistan’s media have interpreted the invitation of External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to his counterpart Bilawal Zardari to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers meeting in May as a sign of a thaw. However, facts show the opposite is true.
A notification of Jaishankar’s invitation was sent through diplomatic channels on December 24, 2022, following Prime Minister Sharif’s conditional offer on January 17, 2023. With her role as SCO President in 2023, India is responsible for inviting all SCO members to the SCO summit in September 2023.
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India’s bilateral relationship with Pakistan remains unchanged, despite the fact that the ardent supporters of India-Pak dialogue and the conflict resolution industry in India have painted a similar picture as their Pakistani counterparts. The simple message is: ”Normalize the relations by putting an end to Border-Crossing terrorism.”
Relief from financing debt is Islamabad’s top priority. Pakistan has approached Washington to ask the Bretton Woods institution to slack off on tough IMF conditions, so it can get a loan from the IMF despite the IMF’s hard conditions. Whereas such decisions will give booster points to Imran Khan Niazi but a political disaster for the PDM regime. So Pakistan runs out of both financial and political ideas.
Raising the interest rates is the only solution to control inflation in Pakistan. So that unsustainable and unviable levels of business costs will also raise. The entire revenue of the federal government is less than the debt servicing cost. They can’t reschedule the debt because of such stiff riders giving that to make soft look to the current IMF conditions.
The Pakistani elite and the generals are not willing to reduce their own expenses or privileges and they always expect the royal protocols.
- Pakistan is now facing political and economic fissures.
- A political rivalry between former premier Imran Khan and the current government created political fissures.
- The Pakistan Army and Pakistani elite are not ready to cut its cost.
The Pakistan Army is also not willing to reduce its expenses and it continuously buys expensive weapons. Improving the Strategic environment and friendly relations with India is the only way to reduce the military budgets. Normalization is achieved in Afghanistan without any legacy conditions and action is taken against Pakistani terror groups.
This never happens because the military has no appetite toward India and Afghanistan, The Rawalpindi GHQ. So there is a destabilized situation in the entire region, especially Pakistan’s Western borderlands.
A similar pattern in the political class is more concerned with preserving its political capital and ensuring its political future than it is with saving the country. At this time, Imran Khan thinks that he will sweep when the immediate election is made but a delayed election is wanted by the Ruling combine. The Army doesn’t want Imran Khan to come back to power. The economy and political system of Pakistan are headed for collapse regardless of how you slice it.
