ISLAMABAD: American Ambassador David Hale met with Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) President Mr. Zubair Tufail and senior FPCCI leadership to discuss American-Pakistani commercial relations.

The United States is Pakistan’s largest single-country export market, with two-way trade in goods on pace to exceed 660 billion rupees in 2017, a record high for our bilateral trade.

The Ambassador reinforced the American Embassy’s commitment to strengthen bilateral trade and investment ties.  He welcomed FPCCI’s efforts to work with the Government of Pakistan to foster a business and investment climate conducive to trade and foreign investment.

ISLAMABAD: At United Nations Security Council (UNSC) , Pakistan calls for addressing ‘horrific’ human rights abuses inflicted by occupation forces on Kashmiris and Palestinians

Pakistan spotlighted in the UN Security Council Wednesday the unresolved disputes of Kashmir and Palestine, saying they were compounding the challenges to an already dangerous world beset with wide-ranging new threats as older ones persist.

“The Palestinian and Kashmiri people continue to suffer horrific human rights violations at the hands of occupying forces, while the world continues to watch without addressing these egregious situations,” Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the 15-member Council.

Speaking in an open debate on tackling challenges to international peace and security, she deplored the fact that long-standing and internationally-recognized Kashmir and Palestine continue to fester, augmenting “challenges of a more turbulent and volatile world.”

The drivers of such challenges include unresolved long-standing disputes, foreign military interventions, political and economic injustice, terrorism and violent extremism, and displacement of populations due to persecution, poverty and conflict, the Pakistani envoy said. What was need was a shift from a culture of reaction to culture of prevention.

There was obviously no one-size-fits-all solution to conflict prevention, ambassador Lodhi said, adding moving a country towards durable peace began with a clear understanding of the sources and nature of conflicts.

Nothing that more blue helmets were currently deployed than at any time in history, she said that UN peacekeeping has always been a cost-effective tool for the maintenance of international peace and security. But peacekeeping needed to be strengthened through support for political solutions that would make peace durable and sustainable.

In this context, Ambassador Lodhi outlined a set of suggestions to address the complex contemporary challenges to peace and security. They include dealing with the root causes of conflict; shifting from emphasis on military action to negotiation; national ownership and leadership; better utilization of Chapter VI of the UN Charter – ‘negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means’; and shaping the UN peacekeeping by the situation on ground, not by the often competing political interests.

“Proliferation of conflicts today is a clear sign of the need for urgent action,” the Pakistani envoy said. “Fundamental change in the way we deal with conflicts is required.”