Falcon 🇵🇰

Master in Genetics; Wishing change in Pakistan; Old Ravian; author at JWT

[Masoud Pezeshkian @drpezeshkian]

I appreciate President Xi Jinping’s thoughtful and responsible support for a return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding and for resolving differences through dialogue and diplomacy.

[Barmak Hamdard 🇦🇫 @Barmakf]

Afghanistan’s New Generation Must Confront the Past: We Owe Pakistan an Apology

We were at odds with Pakistan from the very beginning.

When Pakistan was born in 1947, Afghanistan under King Zahir Shah became the only country to vote against its admission to the United Nations. Afghanistan later withdrew that negative vote, but the dispute over the frontier had already become a defining source of tension between the two neighbors.

Nearly eight decades later, the irony is striking. The Taliban represent a radically different system from Zahir Shah’s monarchy, yet hostility toward Pakistan remains deeply embedded in Afghan politics. Today, disputes over the border, accusations surrounding militant groups, and recurring armed confrontations have again brought the two countries into dangerous conflict.

Our generation does not have to inherit every hostility of the generations before us.

Pakistan is a country of more than 240 million people, not a convenient scapegoat for Afghanistan’s failures. We should stop portraying ourselves as perpetual victims while blaming a neighboring country for every national crisis or using that hostility to seek support from outside powers.

Afghanistan can have a strong friendship with India without turning that friendship into hostility toward Pakistan. Friendship with one neighbor does not require enmity with another.

We can be friends with India. We can be friends with Pakistan. We can defend Afghanistan’s legitimate interests without treating either country as a permanent enemy.

It is time for a new generation to move beyond inherited tribal politics and build relationships based on mutual respect, sovereignty, trade, diplomacy, and peaceful coexistence.

[Inshal Siddiqui🤍🇵🇰✨ @InshalSid123]

🚨🇮🇳🇵🇰This is International Media Newspapers Headlines Pakistan Beat India on 6September 1965 Biggest Fight of Tanks in History this is blatant Proof Of Pakistan Win and Defend it.⚔️🚀
#DefenceDay

[Kabir Taneja @KabirTaneja]

Interesting, and long read by Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief Prince Turki Al-Faisal on the Mecca agreement with Türkiye and Pakistan. Perhaps the most detailed framing of the accord from a powerful Riyadh voice. https://t.co/BpTOjxM3Pe

[Bloomberg @business]

Pakistan scored a major diplomatic win over India this week, further rankling New Delhi https://t.co/eXq72vsUmY

[Reuters @Reuters]

India must uphold water-sharing treaty with Pakistan, international court says https://t.co/d44XI5xicI https://t.co/d44XI5xicI

[ORF @orfonline]

#Pakistan’s dual engagement with the United States Air Force (#USAF) and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (#PLAAF) has moved beyond hardware acquisition to doctrine and force integration. This gives the Pakistan Air Force (#PAF) a networked model of air power, while deepening its strategic dependence on #China: @rawatra10 & Pragyan Agnihotri https://t.co/z96NdZ7hde #AirPower

[Foreign Affairs @ForeignAffairs]

“If the United States wants to keep itself out of costly conflicts around the world, it may have no choice but to forge closer ties with the new stabilizing powers,” a category that includes countries such as Pakistan and Turkey, writes @asfandyarmir.
https://t.co/ENs2JNV4gt

[Reuters Asia @ReutersAsia]

Bangladesh could consider joining Mecca pact, in test for foreign ties https://t.co/PycYZb1Hc2

[The Jerusalem Post @Jerusalem_Post]

Pakistan is expanding its Middle East influence, deepening ties with Syria, preparing talks with Iran, and positioning itself as a potential mediator between Tehran and Washington.
✍️ @sfrantzman

https://t.co/qqtAk58zFa

[Irves @Irves_Watch]

1965 Pakistan, India war. First batch of Iranian and Turkish nurses arriving in Pakistan to provide medical assistance to soldiers at the frontlines.

[Miftah Ismail @MiftahIsmail]

In a well-informed column @Fahdhusain tells us what is about to happen. It seems that the 28th amendment will finally transfer power to the people, the most important step of a federal system. I copy below two of Fahd’s 10 points.

2. An empowered local government system is now inevitable. PML-N, PPP and PTI have resisted this reform for years for no other reason than their selfish political interests, but that resistance is now at its end. Punjab, probably the worst offender, has already sanctioned twelve billion rupees for holding local government elections. It is however too late. The weak forms of LGs legislated by the four provinces are likely to be replaced with legislation that will change not just the mode of elections, but also the role of LGs armed with significantly greater powers. Second irony: people will gain at the expense of political parties.
3. Additional administrative units are a work in progress, which means the final shape of things may not be…well, final. Do political parties have the option of saying thanks but no thanks? For now, it appears not. Whatever negotiation has to happen, has to happen before the new constitutional amendment is tabled in the parliament. The drafters have learned lessons from the passage of the 26th Amendment as well as from the Punjab canals episode, and would prefer not to have any political stakeholder create a public fuss.

https://t.co/JFkLyjtUhD

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇹🇷🇸🇦🇵🇰 Erdogan just compared the Mecca Agreement to NATO’s Article 5...

He said the deal between Turkey, Saudi, and Pakistan works the same way: an attack on one is treated as an attack on all.

Whether the target is Turkey, Saudi, or Pakistan, the other two are committed to step in and defend.

Mutual defense, plain and simple.

Writer: Samuel

[Najam Ali @najam_ali]

A must read article by @Fahdhusain

Pakistan may be heading towards a major institutional reset.

The push appears to be coming from a triumphant establishment that has helped catapult Pakistan back into international relevance. But it also understands a simple truth: external success cannot last without internal reform.

Politicians have themselves to blame for much of the vacuum, but so do the judiciary and bureaucracy. Weak governance, institutional overreach and resistance to reform have brought us here.

The opportunity now is to build a state that actually works. The danger is replacing one imbalance with another.

I hope these changes ultimately produce what Pakistan has long lacked: a stable institutional balance where every institution is strong, but none is supreme.

https://t.co/uMT14pQ6PF

[ORF @orfonline]

#China is no longer just #Pakistan's biggest arms supplier—it's becoming its defence innovation partner. From #JF17 fighters and HQ-9 air defence systems to SH-15 howitzers and submarines, the partnership now spans co-production, technology transfer, and joint operational learning: @ProfHarshVPant https://t.co/2FirQv6wna #Military

[Dawn.com @dawn_com]

Op-ed:

"Partners and projects change, but the underlying psychology remains remarkably constant. Pakistanis have been conditioned to look outward for a change in their fate."

https://t.co/7pcfr3WoPn

[Dawn.com @dawn_com]

Op-ed:

"The ultimate message of the Makkah Agreement is that the region is secure only when every country located in it is safe and when a culture of cooperation replaces one of confrontation."

https://t.co/oLqvdM0GSP

[ORF @orfonline]

#Pakistan’s dual engagement with the United States Air Force (#USAF) and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (#PLAAF) has moved beyond hardware acquisition to doctrine and force integration. This gives the Pakistan Air Force (#PAF) a networked model of air power, while deepening its strategic dependence on #China: @rawatra10 & Pragyan Agnihotri https://t.co/z96NdZ7hde #AirPower

[Council on Foreign Relations @CFR_org]

"Call it the Pakistan paradox: The institution that gives the country international relevance—a disciplined 660,000-strong military armed with nuclear weapons—holds back the Islamic republic’s political and economic modernization," argues CFR expert @dhume.

"Over the past year and a half, the army chief and Pakistan’s de facto leader, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has pulled off a high-wire act: He has raised Pakistan’s international standing even as domestic challenges have mounted."

But unless he can "revive the country’s stagnant economy and calm its restive population, his diplomatic gains will likely prove evanescent," Dhume writes.

"The most recent feather in Gen. Munir’s cap is the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, which Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed last week. It stipulates that an armed attack on any one of them will be regarded as an attack on all three."

"Unfortunately for Pakistan, neither Gen. Munir’s diplomatic feats nor his consolidation of power offers solutions to the country’s domestic crises," writes Dhume. https://t.co/0nmyEct0Wa

[Maleeha Lodhi @LodhiMaleeha]

Worth reading