内容摘要：Pakistan is the fourth country to designate an ambassador to Kabul, after China, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.

Pakistan is the fourth country to designate an ambassador to Kabul, after China, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.

But he has failed to convince the third placed contender – Lee Jun-seok – to abandon his bid and back the PPP to improve its chances. The New Reform Party’s Lee, who is 40 years old, said on Tuesday there would be “no candidate merger” with “those responsible for the emergency martial law”.What about foreign policy?

Although policy debates have taken a backseat, the outcome of the election could reorient South Korea’s approach towards North Korea. The two neighbours are technically in a state of war as the Korean War of 1950-1953 ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and ties between them are at a new low.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for rewriting his country’s constitution to scrap the longstanding goal of unifying the war-divided nations and described Seoul as an “invariable principal enemy”. Pyongyang has also severed communication lines, and the two countries have clashed over balloons and drones carrying rubbish and propaganda.Lee of the Democratic Party has promised to ease tensions if elected, including by restoring a military hotline, and committed to maintaining the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.

Kim, however, has backed Yoon’s hardline approach, promising to secure “pre-emptive deterrence” through tools such as ballistic missiles and the redeployment of US tactical nuclear weapons. He has said he would also seek a path for the country to pursue nuclear armament by securing the right to reprocess nuclear fuel, a key step towards building atomic weapons.The two candidates also differ in their approach to the US, the country’s most important security ally, and to China, its biggest trading partner.

Lee, who espouses what he calls a pragmatic foreign policy, has said it is crucial to maintain South Korea’s alliance with the US and pursue security cooperation with Japan. However, he has pledged to prioritise “national interests” and said there’s “no need to unnecessarily antagonise China or Russia”.

Kim, meanwhile, has questioned Lee’s commitment to the US-South Korea alliance, and has promised to hold an immediate summit meeting with US President Donald Trump if elected to discuss tariffs.Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif

proclaimed that Pakistan had “avenged the 1971 war”, in which it had capitulated and allowed Bangladesh to secede. That’s not battlefield strategy. That’s myth-making.The media in Pakistan amplified this narrative with patriotic zeal. Indian strikes were framed as war crimes, mosques hit, civilians killed. Photographs of rubble and blood were paired with captions about martyrdom. The response, by contrast, was precise, moral, and inevitable.

Pakistan’s national identity, as constructed in this moment, was one of righteous victimhood: we are peaceful, but provoked; restrained, but resolute. We do not seek war, but we do not fear it either.The symmetry is uncanny. Both states saw themselves as defenders, never aggressors. Both claimed moral superiority. Both insisted the enemy fired first. Both said they had no choice.