ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday called for unity and harmony in the society to eradicate militancy and address the country’s economic issues.
The prime minister said this while addressing a National Youth and Ulema Convention in connection with Jumatul Wida in the federal capital of Islamabad.
The statement came amid the South Asian country’s efforts to recover from an economic meltdown under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program secured last year.
Pakistan is also battling twin insurgencies: one led my religiously motivated groups, mainly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the other by ethno-nationalist Baloch separatist groups in Balochistan.
“Unfortunately, the society is being poisoned by disinformation and propaganda,” Sharif said. “We have a chance today as well to place our personal wishes and ego beneath Pakistan.”
According to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index (GTI), Pakistan is now the world’s second-most affected country by militant violence, with deaths rising 45 percent to 1,081 in 2024.
The 12th annual GTI report, published by Australian-based think tank Institute for Economics and Peace, ranked 163 countries in 2024, covering 99.7 percent of the world’s population and analyzing the impact of militant activities worldwide. Pakistan is second only to West African country Burkina Faso on the list.
Sharif emphasized that people from all walks of life, especially religious scholars, have the responsibility to play their role in ending internal divisions based on religious and ethnic divides.
“We have treasures worth billions present in our mountains,” he said. “Pakistan did not come into being so that we keep taking loans and live a life in debt.”
Sharif underscored the importance of setting aside personal desires and egos in the best interest of Pakistan, saying that Pakistan’s armed forces were making unparalleled sacrifices in the fight against militancy.
He urged the attendees to forge national unity, calling it the “only path to achieving a respectable position in the comity of nations.”

KARACHI: A top Pakistani journalist body on Friday condemned a recent visit by a group of local journalists and researchers to Israel, calling it an “effort to whitewash Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.”
A 10-member Pakistani delegation of journalists, intellectuals and influencers this month visited Israel for a week to learn about the Holocaust and the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, according to Israeli media.
Pakistan does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and has consistently called for an independent Palestinian state based on “internationally agreed parameters” and pre-1967 borders.
In a statement on Friday, the Karachi Press Club's (KPC) joint action committee, which represents multiple journalist unions, said the Pakistani journalists who undertook the visit do not represent the “broader media community of Pakistan.”
“We stand firm in our unwavering support for the Palestinian cause and denounce any attempt to normalize relations with a regime engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing,” the committee said in a joint statement, citing KPC President Fazil Jamili.
“The journalists in Pakistan have always been at the forefront of highlighting the suffering of oppressed people, and we will not tolerate any actions that undermine this solidarity.”
Israel Hayom, a Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper, reported the Pakistani journalists and researchers, including two women, arrived in Israel this month and carried passports declaring their invalidity for travel to Israel.
“Despite this, they bravely accepted an invitation from Sharaka, an organization working to strengthen relations between Israel and South Asian countries,” the report said. “To protect the delegation members, their passports were not stamped, and publication of their visit was delayed until they returned safely home.”
In response to media reports about the visit, the Foreign Office in Islamabad said Pakistan’s position on Israel “remains unchanged.”
“Pakistani passports explicitly state they are ‘not valid for travel to Israel’,” it said.
“Pakistan does not recognize Israel and steadfastly supports the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders.”
The KPC committee lamented that the visit, which occurred at a time when over 150 journalists have been killed by Israeli forces for exposing the truth, amounted to “complicity in Israel’s war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people.”
It called for an immediate investigation into how these individuals were able to visit Israel.