On a tight rope: Pakistan's 2019 On Diplomatic Front

As the world welcomes year 2020, Lets take a look at how the year 2019 fared for Pakistan on the diplomatic front.

The government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had to face the first major challenge of the year on diplomatic front.

A suicide attack on February 14 this year in Pulwama district of occupied Jammu and Kashmir on a convoy of Indian security personnel, adding fuel to the already tense bilateral ties.

Indian government promptly blamed the incident on Islamabad, which condemned the attack, denied it had anything to do with it, and also offered swift action if New Delhi provided any credible evidence.

The attack however, snowballed into a major diplomatic crisis. Indian fighter jets crossed the Line of Control in the last week of February and claimed to have conducted a “surgical strike” in Balakot area. New Delhi also claimed to destroy a terrorist camp with 300-350 casualties in the attack.

Pakistan denied the claim, saying neither was there any camp nor any casualty. Independent reports, including high resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters, also contradicted the Indian claims.

Pakistan Air Force jets on the other day crossed the LoC to Indian territory, and in a dogfight, an Indian MiG-21 was shot down on the Pakistani side of the border and its pilot was captured.

Prime Minister Imran Khan in a goodwill gesture, returned the pilot a few days later. The ties however remain in cold storage and further aggravated.

The revocation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution in August by New Delhi, which provides special status to Kashmir, startled Islamabad, which launched a campaign to highlight and globalize the issue, resulting in that resonating speech by Prime Minister Imran Khan at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Khan warned that if the world did not intervene, he feared the two nuclear-armed countries could easily be drawn into a dangerous confrontation with catastrophic results. Prime Minister Imran Khan had started his government in August 2018 peace overtures towards India and had invited neighboring country for talks over scores of contentious issues between the two sides.

He continued his policy towards India in the same vein despital all odds. Prominent diplomatic achievement of his government this year was the much celebrated inauguration of the Kartarpur Corridor in November to facilitate Sikh pilgrims from India and other parts of the world, to visit the last resting place of Baba Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.

It is a step that not only met a public demand of the Sikhs of India across the border but will also create goodwill towards Pakistan in the public. It drew global attention amid scenes of emotional reunion that had eluded the followers of Baba Guru Nanak for decades.

A major foreign policy success of the government was the return to normality in ties with the United States. The Trump Administration re-engaged Islamabad to seek its leverage on peace talks in Afghanistan.

The White House hosted Prime Minister Khan twice holding widely followed talks with Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UNGA session.

Pakistan’s bilateral ties with Russia have also improved in recent years to a mutually beneficial ties in various fields.

Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan face formidable challenges and mutual distrust and the ties with Iran are not as good as were in the past.

China is the only neighboring country with growing and mutually beneficial strategic as well as
economic ties.

China backed Pakistan at its time of need with supporting Pakistan’s stance over Kashmir at United Nations and at precious help at Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to evade being blacklisted by the forum.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is the country most visitid by Prime Minister Imran Khan, which along with the UAE and China have extended valuable economic support to address balance of payment crisis in Pakistan as well as the KSA has announced investment in several projects in the country.

Pakistan’s recent snub to the Kuala Lampur summit from 18-22 December to discuss the problems of the Muslim world, allegedly on Saudi demand, could be termed a major foreign policy debacle of the PTI government this year.

Two prominent leaders of the Muslim world, Mahathir Mohamed and Tayyab Erdogan, had came out in support in a time of trouble for Pakistan. There were only Turkey and Malaysia which support Kashmir openly on the world forum.

Pakistan, in a troubled neighborhood with formidable foreign policy challenges, have to walk on a tight rope in coming years to maintain a delicate balance between its ground realities and aspirations.