Middle East scenario, Israel-Iran conflict and Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan: It was September 6, 2014, when President Xi Jinping’s first visit to Pakistan was postponed over the mass anti-government demonstrations of PTI and PAT outside the Parliament House Islamabad. The visit was rescheduled to March 2015 but even then it was postponed because PTI was still sitting outside the Parliament House.

The demand of Imran Khan and cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri was that the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif step down over allegations of fraud in the 2013 general election. Since then, PTI always arranged protests in Pakistan whenever any important diplomatic visit, event, or conference takes place in Pakistan.

That was the time when the foreign office of Pakistan was allegedly providing minute-to-minute developments taking place between Beijing and Islamabad to PTI leadership so the PTI was planning everything according to the available information. Pakistan’s government through back-channel diplomacy contacted a foreign country’s embassy in Islamabad and demanded punitive action against a dual nationality holder for disrupting Pakistan’s economy and law and order situation. However, Pakistan got only a smile from the foreign country’s embassy and no action was taken against this dual nationality holder although there are laws available that if a citizen of a foreign country disrupts the law and order of any foreign country, he/she can be served notice and even can face action. Since then Chinese President could not visit Pakistan. It was a great diplomatic jolt for Islamabad. It may be noted that the Chinese President was supposed to inaugurate the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project officially and Islamabad was hoping for $34 billion in Chinese investment in the coming years.

Now, PTI again has announced country-wide protests and reaching outside the Parliament on October 4, 2024, when the Malaysian Prime Minister is in Pakistan and Islamabad is working to host thousands of foreign diplomats in the second week of October for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) events. The series of rallies, processions, and protests has been part of PTI politics to disrupt the law and order situation in the country and the government claims that all is done on the instruction of foreign masters who want to see Pakistan a troubled country and want to discourage investment and development in Pakistan. The claims are not so unfounded because PTI comes out on the streets against the government whenever something important is going on in Pakistan and this harms Pakistan’s economy. The founder chairman of PTI Imran Khan is infamous among politicians for his anarchic mentality that does not want the country to go on the path of development and he always tries to destroy the image of the country by holding protests, sending letters to the UN to penalize Pakistan for alleged human rights abuses, writing letters to IMF to hold loaning to Pakistan and demanding US Congressmen to move for sanctions against Pakistan.

Since Pakistan is getting out of a financial crunch, the PTI is gearing up protests again. If we look closely, according to the economic data, the inflation which went up to 38% in May 2023, today has come down to a single digit i.e. 9.6%. In June 2023, the dollar reached 333.5 rupees, but today the currency exchange rate and the rupee have stabilized due to the recovery in GDP growth. Today, the dollar has reached 277.72 rupees. A program worth 7 billion dollars was approved by the IMF. Due to the best economic initiatives, the stock exchange of Pakistan has emerged as the best-performing stock exchange in the world. The top 86 companies in the stock market earned a record profit of Rs 1.7 trillion. In June 2023, KSE 100 index was at 41452.69 points, today this index has reached 82463.05 points.

The federal government has also been able to reduce the trade and current account deficit to a large extent; exports are gradually increasing; Moody’s has upgraded Pakistan’s credit rating from CC2 to CC3 due to improved economic indicators; the price of petrol is being reduced every fortnight; the price of the most commonly used and essential commodity, flour are now affordable even for the poor man.

The most serious and alarming thing is that at a time when the Malaysian Prime Minister is on his first visit to Pakistan, the PTI Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who sometimes attacks Islamabad, sometimes Lahore, and sometimes Rawalpindi with a group of miscreants has called for a protest in Islamabad on October 4 and is also threatening that if one bullet of police goes off against his protestors then he will shoot ten bullets. PTI’s social media is also making this narrative viral, that is, an atmosphere of violence is being created under a well-thought-out plan.

Such mischievous announcements and threats are trying to create the impression that there is total political instability in Pakistan at present. This party is spreading this agenda on its social media and trying to give the impression to the Pakistanis and important personalities sitting outside that the situation in Pakistan is very tense, and no foreign visit or investment can be made there.

“The main agenda of this agitation by PTI is also a major Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference to be held in Pakistan on October 15 and 16, which they want to sabotage. For this, they are making regular plans. It is clear that on October 4, they called for a protest in D Chowk Islamabad. When the Malaysian Prime Minister is in Pakistan, security will be on high alert in the federal government. And the administration and the law enforcement agencies will stop the political movements of this miscreant party which will make it uncontrollable and confrontation is a sign of wall”, commented a senior journalist while talking to DND News Agency.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a major international forum that includes friendly countries like China, Russia, India, Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, including Pakistan, and the forum has its own significance in the region.

Pakistan is trying to give the impression that the country is ready to host the heads of major countries by holding a conference that has its important at the international level. The threat to stage a sit-in with batons, weapons, and government resources of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is enough to prove that this party is running on an anti-national agenda and its sole aim is to defame Pakistan at the international level.