Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who is currently in Turkmenistan on a two-day official visit, will hold meetings with global leaders on the sidelines of an international conference being hosted in Ashgabat. The report said that the premier will attend the forum marking the International Year of Peace and Trust 2025, the International Day of Neutrality, and the 30th anniversary of Turkmenistan’s permanent neutrality. The report did not mention which leaders PM Shehbaz would be meeting.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian are among those attending the gathering. The report also added that PM Shehbaz, and other leaders attending the international forum, also visited the Monument of Neutrality in Ashgabat earlier in the day, where a floral wreath laying ceremony was held.

A day earlier, PM Shehbaz had met Turk­menistan President Serdar Berdimuhamedov and congratulated him on the 30th anniversary of Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan and on the UN designation of 2025 as the International Year of Peace and Trust. While underscoring the importance of the historic and fraternal relations between Pakistan and Turkmenistan, the PM expressed his resolve to further strengthen ties between the two countries, partic­ularly through enh­anced trade and economic engagement.

He reaffirmed Pakistan’s desire to enhance connectivity with Turkmenistan through land and sea routes. In a subsequent post on X, the premier said he looked forward to welcoming President Berdimuhamedov and politician Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Pakistan next year. United Nations had granted Turkmenistan the status of a neutral country in 1995.

UN defines neutrality as “the legal status arising from the abstention of a state from all participation in a war between other states, the maintenance of an attitude of impartiality toward the belligerents, and the recognition by the belligerents of this abstention and impartiality”.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)