FRAGRANCE OF IDEAS
Geopolitical developments taking place at a fast pace around the world, and particularly in the region and sphere in which Pakistan is involved, create great concern and desperation in Pakistan. These upheavals for Pakistan are mostly beyond any sort of control or convenient management that could have been ordinarily or even extraordinarily possible in routine matters. Analysts, government and their agencies throughout and the media in Pakistan are in serious and worrisome wild debate and discussion on these upheavals and the sudden developments causing perceivable hurt to its international and regional position.
The SCO Summit in Uzbekistan followed by the BRICS Summit in New Delhi over the last two months have been a cause of serious concern and frustration for Pakistan. The tour of two Central Asian nations by PM Narendra Modi, followed by various programmes, diplomatic and political engagements therein, including his recognition by the Uzbek nation, conferring upon him their highest public honour, has also added to the already existing frustration. The uranium supply programme discussion with the Uzbekistan government by the Indian leadership has also been a migraine-giving factor for the think tank in Pakistan’s establishment.
The success of the BRICS summit in New Delhi, in which Russian President Putin and the Chinese President Xi Jinping also participated with great enthusiasm along with the other global leaders, created ripples in the whole socio-political set-up of Pakistan. Moreover, Pakistan’s non-inclusion in the summit due to the lack of any invitation further added salt to its injury. The invitation to Iran and serious engagements with them at the Summit was also not taken kindly by it.
Ever since the outbreak of the US-Iran-Israel war, the energy crisis and their prices have disturbed the whole world. Every nation has made attempts to cater to its energy demand and is deeply concerned about the supply chain of oil globally. India has been continuously and consistently playing its positive role so far as the oil supply chain and its routes are concerned. It has maintained cordial and warm relationships with the Middle East countries for the good of humanity that includes its own good too.
This was visible through the BRICS summit in New Delhi when the President of Iran had cordial bilateral meetings on its sidelines with the Indian side, in which he showed a great bonhomie and also exhibited positive expectations from the Indian leadership in the context of the US-Iran war. The positive overtures of the Indian side in this regard were taken due note of by everyone.
India was also successful in brokering a high-level meeting between the UAE and Iran leadership during the BRICS sidelines, which sent shockwaves through Pakistan’s political leadership and its strategic policy managers. The Indian leadership has taken several important steps to ensure the stability of the oil supply chain through the Middle East despite the ongoing strife there. Besides ensuring crude oil and other energy supplies from Russia (despite US sanctions), Iran and Saudi Arabia, India took tangible steps to ensure its future energy requirements as well. In this connection, it went ahead with some important steps that have far-reaching implications regionally and globally.
India and the UAE are taking their long-standing energy partnership to another level. Following India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UAE in May this year, Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) agreed to explore significantly expanding cooperation in strategic energy storage, including the potential storage of up to 30 million barrels of ADNOC crude oil in India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves. This is surely significant as it ensures energy freedom to India in the region. The agreement is about expanding strategic storage cooperation and strengthening energy supply security between the two nations.
Pakistan analysts and the media have been crying about this proposed cooperation, which also includes ADNOC’s participation in storage facilities at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh (India) and the development of reserve facilities at Chandikhol in Odisha (India), alongside its existing storage presence at Mangalore. They feel surprised that the two sides are also exploring the possibility of storing crude oil at Fujairah in the UAE as part of India’s strategic petroleum reserve framework. Cooperation in LNG and LPG storage is also being explored by the two sides and the analysts in their opinion in Pakistan view it as a major threat to Pakistan in the event of any kind of conflict between India and Pakistan. They term it as ‘a big disparity in the energy security scenario in the region that has negative implications for the region, especially Pakistan’.
‘For a major oil-importing economy like India, that also exports refined oil to other countries globally, strategic petroleum reserves can provide an important buffer during wars, geopolitical tensions, shipping disruptions or other emergencies that affect global energy supplies’. Indian opinion in this regard says that larger and more diversified reserves can strengthen the country’s ability to respond to unexpected supply shocks. ‘This is where diplomacy and security of energy come together, thus strengthening international partnerships today while preparing for the uncertainties of tomorrow’. While the India-UAE partnership shows how long-term energy cooperation can contribute to more resilient supply chains and greater surety about the future, Pakistan views the partnership as a threat to regional and global security.
The Yemen Houthi rebels drone and missile attack targeting Saudi Arabia and its energy infrastructure, and particularly the city of Mecca, has created serious doubts about the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed in August this year between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan. It has caused serious doubts about the collective security pact. Saudi Arabia was forced to take help from Israel in regard to the intelligence inputs regarding these and future attacks.
The Agreement was put to the test, and it was observed that neither Pakistan nor Turkey could in any way come to the rescue of Saudi Arabia, particularly when the city of Mecca was under attack by the Houthis. The Agreement had said that ‘any attack on any one of the signatories to the agreement would be treated as an attack on all of them’. The rebels also declared a naval blockade on the Saudi shipping in the Red Sea and Bab el Mandeb Strait, and there was virtually no response from Pakistan and Turkey in this connection, keeping in view the provisions of the Agreement between the three nations.
The United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York in the context of its 81st session during the month of September 2026 brought India into focus once again. The Turkish President Erdogan and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, besides Pakistan’s permanent representative, raised the Kashmir issue in their addresses, which were responded well by the Indian representatives. However, the absence of the Indian Prime Minister, Chinese President and the Russian President from the UNGC session was also commented upon in various ways by the Pakistan analysts, while it was also said that the presence and address of the US President Trump in the UNGC had no major relevance in context of the current geo-political scenario.
The support expressed in favour of India by the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah and Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay in the UNGC meetings and particularly the support for India’s permanent position in the Security Council, was viewed very seriously by the analysts in Pakistan. The reply presented by a number of India’s representatives on Kashmir had a great impact on the psyche of Pakistan’s thinking minds.
This can be further analysed in the context of the following development in which the Indian diplomat Khitij Tyagi serving as Counsellor at India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, on September 23, 2026, delivered India’s Right of Reply during the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, responding to Pakistan’s remarks on Jammu & Kashmir.
One of the key issues he dwelt upon was the 1990 forced mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley. Responding to Pakistan’s allegations concerning Kashmir, Khitij Tyagi said that Kashmiri Pandits were driven from their homes by the terrorists whom Pakistan had “armed, trained and sent across the border.” He added that the same terrorists subsequently killed Kashmiris belonging to different faiths. He also referred to reports of civilian deaths, arrests and shortages of food and medicine in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and made it a point to convey that Pakistan ought to focus on development rather than territorial claims and the export of terrorism to the world and particularly to India.
Ambassador Parvathineni Harish of India strongly rejected the Pakistan claims and said that Pakistan is habitually misusing the UN platforms for divisive political agendas and reiterated that the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are inalienable and internal part of India. Additionally, PM Sharief, in his address, raked up the issue of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) at the UN again. However, the External Affairs Ministry of India, under the leadership of Dr S.Jay Shankar, External Affairs Minister, who was also at the UN, already issued a befitting reply from Bishkek in this context.
India made its stand known to the world on the IWT issue. The statement said that the Hague-based International Tribunal ruling that ‘India’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty was not legally permissible and that the 1960 pact remains fully in force’ was not in any way acceptable to India. India rejected the ruling, saying the tribunal had no jurisdiction to pronounce on its sovereign decisions. India rejected the award and also the interim measures order, reiterating that it does not recognise the Court of Arbitration and has never participated in its proceedings.
(The author is a senior BJP & KP leader, Human Rights Defender and a columnist and can be reached at: [email protected])
