ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said two consular officers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were given access on Thursday to an Indian officer convicted of spying and sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in 2017.
Kulbhushan Jadhav was arrested in March 2016 in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, the site of a long-running conflict between security forces and separatists. He was convicted of planning espionage and sabotage and sentenced to death.
India says Jadhav is innocent. Last year the World Court ordered Pakistan to review the death penalty for Jadhav.
Last week, Pakistan’s foreign office said Jadhav had refused to file a review petition against the death sentence but Pakistan would offer him consular access for a second time.
“Two consular officers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were provided unimpeded and uninterrupted consular access to Commander Jadhav at 1500 hours,” the foreign office said in a statement on Thursday.
“First consular access under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) 1963 was earlier provided by Pakistan on 2 September 2019. The mother and wife of Commander Jadhav were also allowed to meet him on 25 December 2017.”
Pakistan authorities say Jadhav confessed to being ordered by India’s intelligence service to conduct espionage and sabotage in Balochistan, a province at the centre of a $60 billion Chinese-backed “Belt and Road” development project.
In a transcript released by Pakistan of what it says is Jadhav’s confession, the former naval officer says disrupting the Chinese-funded projects was a main goal of his activities.
Pakistan gives Indian High Commission 'second consular access' to Indian convicted of spying
https://arab.news/vwdrt
Pakistan gives Indian High Commission 'second consular access' to Indian convicted of spying
- Diplomats were provided “unimpeded and uninterrupted” access to Jadhav at 1500 hours, Pakistan says
- Indian officer Jadhav was arrested from Balochistan in 2016 and convicted for spying and sentenced to death in 2017
Pakistan reports current account surplus in Jan. owing to improved trade, remittances
- Pakistan’s exports crossed the $3 billion mark in Jan. as the country received $3.5 billion in remittances
- Last month, IMF urged Pakistan to accelerate pace of structural reforms to strengthen economic growth
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded a current account surplus of more than $120 million in January, the country’s finance adviser said on Tuesday, attributing it to improved trade balance and remittance inflows.
Pakistan’s exports rebounded in January 2026 after five months of weak performance, rising 3.73 percent year on year and surging 34.96 percent month on month, according to data released by the country’s statistics bureau.
Exports crossed the $3 billion mark for the first time in January to reach $3.061 billion, compared to $2.27 billion in Dec. 2025. The country received $3.5 billion in foreign remittances in Jan. 2026.
Khurram Schehzad, an adviser to the finance minister, said Pakistan reported a current account surplus of $121 million in Jan., compared to a current account deficit of $393 million in the same month last year.
“Improved trade balance in January 2026, strong remittance inflows, and sustained momentum in services exports (IT/Tech) continue to reinforce the country’s external account position,” he said on X.
Pakistan has undergone a difficult period of stabilization, marked by inflation, currency depreciation and financing gaps, and international rating agencies have acknowledged improvements after Islamabad began implementing reforms such as privatizing loss-making, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and ending subsidies as part of a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program.
Late last month, the IMF urged Pakistan to accelerate the pace of these structural reforms to strengthen economic growth.
Responding to questions from Arab News at a virtual media roundtable on emerging markets’ resilience, IMF’s director of the Middle East and Central Asia Jihad Azour said Islamabad’s implementation of the IMF requirements had been “strong” despite devastating floods that killed more than 1,000 people and devastated farmland, forcing the government to revise its 4.2 percent growth target to 3.9 percent.
“What is important going forward in order to strengthen growth and to maintain the level of macroeconomic stability is to accelerate the structural reforms,” he said at the meeting.
Azour underlined Pakistan’s plans to privatize some of the SOEs and improve financial management of important public entities, particularly power companies, as an important way for the country to boost its capacity to cater to the economy for additional exports.
“This comes in addition to the effort that the authorities have made in order to reform their tariffs, which will allow the private sector of Pakistan to become more competitive,” the IMF official said.
