ISLAMABAD — Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has signaled a hardening of Pakistan’s stance on regional security, telling the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of Government that stability remains impossible as long as terrorism continues to emanate from Afghan soil.
Speaking at the summit in Islamabad, Dar addressed the bloc’s leaders with a blunt assessment of the security climate. He argued that the current trajectory of regional connectivity and economic growth is being held hostage by cross-border threats. For Pakistan, the message was clear: the Afghan Taliban’s failure to dismantle militant sanctuaries is no longer just a bilateral friction point — it is a regional roadblock.
“Peace and stability are the prerequisites for development,” Dar told the gathering. “These are only possible by eliminating the menace of terrorism, particularly that which emanates from Afghanistan.”
The statement comes at a time when Pakistan is grappling with a sharp uptick in militant violence, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Security officials in Islamabad have repeatedly pointed to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliates, claiming they operate with relative impunity across the border. While the Afghan Taliban administration in Kabul denies these claims, the frequency of attacks on Pakistani security forces has left little room for diplomatic ambiguity in Islamabad’s rhetoric.
By raising the issue at the SCO platform, Dar is attempting to broaden the consensus against militancy. The bloc, which includes China, Russia, and several Central Asian states, shares a collective anxiety regarding the potential for Afghan-based extremism to spill over borders. Pakistan’s strategy here is to pivot from a localized border dispute to a regional security imperative.
However, the challenge for Dar and the current administration remains the lack of a tangible response from Kabul. Previous rounds of dialogue have yielded little in terms of actionable intelligence sharing or the extradition of high-value targets.
As the summit concludes, the focus shifts to whether this public call for accountability will translate into a unified regional strategy or remain a statement of intent. For now, Islamabad has made its position the headline: the region’s economic ambitions are secondary to the security reality on its western border.
