Ambassador (Retd) Asif Ali Durrani has been a career diplomat for more than three decades, and served as Ambassador of Pakistan to the UAE and Iran. He was also posted to India, Afghanistan, United Kingdom and Pakistan Mission to the United Nations in New York. Prior to joining the Foreign Service of Pakistan in 1986,…
Located in a prime area of Karachi, Flagstaff House was purchased by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1943 as his personal residence. However he did not live in the house as he had to move into the Governor General House when Pakistan came into being in 1947. Jinnah’s sister Fatima Jinnah lived in Flagstaff House…
From Shimla to Goa, Pakistan’s bilateralism with India has come a long way. It has nosedived and hit rock bottom in essence. With bad blood and mistrust ruling the roost, it is difficult to imagine any statesmanship role from either of the ruling dispensations. As Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari air-dashed to the southwestern coast of…
Pakistan’s western border has not been serene for almost four decades now. It has been a theatre of revulsion and an immediate threat to Pakistan’s security and sovereignty. This is so despite a friendly perception being nursed with the landlocked state, and a swirl of unending tales reminding the nation that Afghanistan comes with strategic…
Ikram Sehgal, Co-Chairman Pathfinder Group spoke at Karachi Literature Festival 2023 on the topic, “Untangling South Asia.” This segment of the event was organized in collaboration with Oxford University Press (OUP). Mr. Sehgal welcomed Mr. Michael Kugelman – Director, South Asia Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center and Deputy Director of the South Asia Program…
What should I speak to an audience that is already very informed and very precocious and far more learned or educated than I could ever be. So I thought to myself that I am going to first speak about Pakistan and I will take the liberty of telling you a little bit of how I…
Welcome to all the panelists and welcome to everybody. Talking about reshaping Pakistan I want to start with the people on the stage, you’ve already heard Muzaffar Hayat Piracha speaking about his fantastic company, Airlink. I had the honor of hosting Tariq Malik during his speech in VRG’s Breakfast Meeting for the WEF’s Edison Alliance…
As Saudi authorities gunned down more than 400 Iranian pilgrims during the occasion of Hajj in 1987, it was one of the worst scenarios to set in their bilateral relations. It was a torpedoed mosaic of bad blood interaction since then-on for years, but with only the exception that they did not go to war….
I vividly remember former Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral once saying, “there has to be a dispute between India and Pakistan; and even if they come to resolve the Kashmir issue, they will invent another one…”. Though sarcastic, the par-excellence diplomat was not wrong, per se. The crude manner in which New Delhi on…
Barack Obama, the first Black-American President of the United States, quipped, “In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power, including strong and principled diplomacy.” That aptly applies to the situation that Pakistan is confronted with these days. The fact is that Pakistan has played to the…
