Building on long-standing ties & Islamic solidarity, Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement comes at a time of heightened regional tensions especially after Israeli attack on Doha.
Muslim countries are authoritative and feel threatened by democracies because of interventionist policies. Beijing took the advantage of these conditions.
Bitterness preceded the visit, which is happening for the first time since the Ladakh stand-off began, despite its extremely crucial nature. Both sides didn’t announce the visit officially.
India builds ‘regional consensus’ with Central Asian countries on Afghanistan. Concurrently, Pakistan creates fund under Islamic Development Bank at a special OIC session.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s refusal to allow a stand-alone meeting on Kashmir issue signals a new era of understanding of New Delhi’s position.
China has again been Pakistan’s friend — bailing it out of Saudi loans and raising the Kashmir at UNSC. But Islamabad is fast losing other friends in Islamic world.
In 2022, athletes claimed they were asked to wind up training early at Thyagraj Stadium so that the IAS couple could walk their dog. Then came the memes and public outrage.
Instead of buying more Mirages outright in early 2000s, the requirement was tweaked in favour of a medium-weight, multi-role fighter with Mirage-like performance.
Pakistan not only has zero chance of catching up with India in most areas, but will inevitably see the gap rising. Its leaders will offer its people the same snake oil in different bottles.
COMMENTS