islamabad
\nPrime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said Pakistan had made utmost efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East and that its efforts were still ongoing to end the US-Israel war on Iran.
\nSpeaking during a special high-level meeting, the prime minister said Pakistan was being significantly affected by the ongoing war and was facing economic challenges as a result. He said the government was making efforts to reduce tensions and promote peace. The more than a month-long war between the US, Israel and Iran began on February 28 and has plunged the Middle East into turmoil.
\nSoon after the initial US-Israel strikes on Iran, Tehran blocked the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 a key shipping route \u2014 and launched retaliatory attacks on Israel and US bases across the region.
\nPakistan has been acting as an intermediary between the United States and Iran and has stepped up its diplomatic push to help end the US-Israel war on Iran. In this regard, Pakistan hosted key regional ministers \u2014 from Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and Egypt \u2014 and relayed messages between Washington and Tehran.
\nOn Tuesday, Pakistan and China also jointly urged the US, Israel, and Iran to stop the strikes and initiate \u201cpeace talks as soon as possible\u201d.
\nAddressing the meeting earlier today, the prime minister said two Pakistani vessels were stranded in the Strait of Hormuz but had safely crossed due to the efforts of Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir.
\nHe said the deputy prime minister was working tirelessly to ease tensions in the region. \u201cWe have made every effort to cool down the flames of war in the region,\u201d he said.
\nPM Shehbaz said that chief ministers had assured cooperation to tackle wartime challenges, while the federal govt had reduced the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) by Rs100 billion within three weeks. He added that parliamentarians had also ensured measures to conserve fuel.
\nHighlighting priorities, the prime minister said protecting the public, the agriculture sector and goods transport remained a key focus. \u201cControlling inflation is also among our top priorities,\u201d he said.
\nHe underscored that the federation and provinces must work together and utilise resources collectively to deal with the difficult situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
islamabad Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said Pakistan had made utmost efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East and that its efforts were still ongoing to end the US-Israel war on Iran. Speaking during a special high-level meeting, the prime minister said Pakistan was being significantly affected by the ongoing war and was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95817,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95795\/revisions\/95817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}