The Nation Editorials 28th August 2026

Iran to Kuwait

Pakistan’s growing defence engagement with Kuwait, coming alongside its recent outreach to Iran, is an important and necessary demonstration of balance in an increasingly fragmented Middle East. Islamabad must not only maintain working relations across the region’s competing blocs; it must also be seen to be doing so. In diplomacy, such impressions matter.

The latest engagement with Kuwait therefore carries weight beyond symbolism. The signing of Protocol Agreement 2026, expanding cooperation under the 2023 Defence Cooperation Agreement, gives practical shape to a relationship that has recently seen a noticeable rise in high-level contacts. Training, capacity building, border management and other areas of military cooperation provide precisely the sort of concrete framework through which strategic partnerships become functional.

British Council opens applications for Scotland Pakistan Scholarships 2026–27
That distinction is important. Pakistan has signed a number of defence and strategic agreements with Middle Eastern states in recent years. Translating them from paper to pavement is where most such agreements succeed or fail. Regular military interaction, institutional ties, training programmes and operational cooperation are what transform diplomatic declarations into durable security relationships.

There is also a larger regional trend at work. As the United States gradually reduces the scale and certainty of its traditional security role in the Middle East, regional states are seeking broader and more diversified partnerships. Pakistan is increasingly positioned to fill parts of that emerging security vacuum.

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For now, this may be visible in relatively limited fields such as training, capacity building and defence cooperation. But the direction is significant. If the broader trend is towards an eventual retreat of imperial power from the region, states capable of offering credible, non-hegemonic security partnerships will become increasingly valuable.

Pakistan should continue cultivating this role carefully, maintaining balance across regional rivalries while ensuring that every strategic agreement produces tangible cooperation.

IWT & UK

Pakistan cannot afford to treat India’s abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty as just another bilateral dispute. Water is Pakistan’s jugular, and any attempt to threaten its access to the rivers on which millions of lives and much of the economy depend must be answered with sustained diplomatic, legal and strategic pressure.

Military preparedness is one part of that response. Diplomacy must be the other. In this regard, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar’s decision to raise the IWT during his meeting with British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is particularly important.

British Council opens applications for Scotland Pakistan Scholarships 2026–27
There are few capitals better suited than London for such engagement. Britain retains political, economic and historical influence across South Asia, including with India. More importantly, there is considerable symbolic relevance in involving the former colonial power whose partition of the subcontinent left behind many of the borders, disputes and scars that continue to shape the region today. Britain cannot undo that history, but it can contribute towards ensuring that its consequences are managed through law rather than coercion.

Securing British support will not necessarily be easy. Miliband’s political sympathies have often appeared closely aligned with the Western-Israeli axis, whose strategic convergence increasingly extends towards India. Islamabad should therefore harbour no illusions that historical relationships alone will produce diplomatic backing.

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That only makes sustained engagement more necessary.

Pakistan’s case should remain straightforward: treaties cannot be discarded unilaterally whenever political relations deteriorate. Allowing such behaviour to stand would weaken not merely the IWT but the broader principle that international agreements must survive political crises.

Dar’s London engagement must therefore be followed by sustained diplomacy in Britain and elsewhere. Pakistan cannot remain silent while India places its water security under threat. The issue must remain on every relevant diplomatic table until treaty obligations are fully restored.

PIMS Fire

Another fire, another unimaginable tragedy. Fourteen newborn babies are dead at Pims, and families who had been waiting for the beginning of new lives have instead been plunged into grief beyond comprehension. There are some losses for which language itself feels inadequate.

But grief cannot be allowed to obscure the pattern.

Pakistan has seen too many fires in major buildings, hospitals and commercial centres where deaths are multiplied by poor construction, inadequate safety systems, blocked exits, weak enforcement and an absence of emergency planning. From Gul Plaza to Pims, the circumstances differ, but the underlying institutional failure remains disturbingly familiar.

British Council opens applications for Scotland Pakistan Scholarships 2026–27
Condemnation from lawmakers will achieve little on its own. Neither will another inquiry whose findings disappear into government files. Pakistan needs a comprehensive revamp of its fire and building safety codes, followed by strict enforcement across large public and private buildings.

That must include a review of how such buildings are designed, constructed, inspected and occupied. Fire-resistant materials, electrical standards, emergency exits, alarms, sprinklers, evacuation routes and regular drills cannot be optional features. In hospitals, where infants, intensive-care patients and others may be incapable of escaping on their own, these safeguards are even more essential.

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The reported closure of emergency exits at Pims raises particularly serious questions. Security concerns cannot be addressed by creating greater dangers to human life. There are cameras, guards, access controls and technological solutions for preventing theft; locking escape routes in a hospital should never be one of them.

Above all, there must be accountability. The families of Gul Plaza victims are still crying out for justice, and now another chorus has been added to them.

If responsibility once again dissolves into committees, transfers and administrative reshuffling, the next tragedy will already be in the making.