Pakistan assumed the presidency of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on August 17, 2026, and is now presiding over the world’s only standing multilateral forum for negotiating arms control treaties. Ambassador Tahir Hussain Andrabi, Additional Secretary for Arms Control and Disarmament, Foreign Office, now chairs a body comprising all 65 CD member states, including every nuclear-weapon state. With the final Presidency of the 2026 session, Pakistan will lead the Conference through the end of the year and conduct the drafting of the Annual Report and the accompanying resolution, which will be presented to the First Committee of the UN General Assembly. This is a quiet, yet sincere presidential opportunity to be recognized not just as a nuclear state that manages deterrence responsibly, but as a guardian and custodian of an institution that determines how the world thinks and talks about disarmament. This distinction is not something to be taken with a pinch of salt and Pakistan should do every bit to ensure it is reinforced every week as it serves this Presidency.
The CD and its predecessor forums contributed to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). However, for over 20 years, the Conference has failed to reach a substantive program of work, not because any one country blocked it, but because of its consensus-based approach. Indeed, substantive discussion continued throughout the agenda, while Pakistan’s own leadership has admitted that the session once again did not yield a program of work. Presiding as the Chair at a moment like this is not so much ‘diplomatic honor’ but ‘diplomatic duty’.
In fact, the Presidency of Pakistan has already indicated an important principle that there is a difference between the Chair of the House and the national offices. Andrabi has emphasized that it is important that the Annual Report is a true representation of the discussions during the session, and is impartial and objective, including even on topics on which Pakistan’s foreign office has strong views, which have been pending for a long time. Remaining separate and acting as a fair steward of the Report, even as continuing to advocate Pakistan’s substantive case via its own delegation, is the very way smaller and middle-sized powers secure their credibility in the bodies dominated by great power rivalry. It is a portrayal that Pakistan needs to defend during these four weeks, as it impacts Islamabad’s image as a key player in arms control diplomacy.
Policy Options for Pakistan
First, Pakistan should do more than just check-marking, that is, make the preparation of the Annual Report an act of institution-building, one that regional groups and the nuclear powers can refer to and look at as a balanced document and so earn goodwill for the future CD cycles and for Pakistan’s general disarmament diplomacy at the UN. Second, Pakistan has long-term defensible positions on certain issues that it could promote on the platform of the Presidency, namely Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS). As more major powers keep on weaponizing the space, Pakistan can use this presidency to ensure its stance and visibility concerning PAROS without ever compromising on its stance on the FMCT.
Third, Geneva’s four-week presidency is accompanied by intensive sideline diplomacy, including talks with regional coordinators, former presidents, and heads of mission. In these interactions, Pakistan’s representatives should make use of the opportunity to reach out to their counterparts on the issue of strategic stability, in a quiet and non-provocative manner, which is in fact not possible in the formal negotiations. Fourth, the Foreign Office and institutions like think tanks and universities should promote this presidency domestically and at the academic level through seminars, publications and Track-II interaction to make it that the chairmanship of the CD was not a footnote in Pakistani diplomacy but was a reflection of Pakistan’s positive record in multilateral arms control.
It is not a matter that can be solved in one presidency, and Pakistan should not attempt to solve the Conference’s 20-year stalemate in one presidency. What it can do is leave the chair with a firm conviction that a nuclear state in South Asia can be trusted to protect, in a fair and faithful manner, the world’s own means of discussing nuclear disarmament. This is the reputation, painstakingly cultivated one presidency at a time, that is more valuable to the country’s stature than any single treaty’s output, and one that Pakistan can achieve this August.
Harsa Kakar
Ms. Harsa Kakar is a Research Assistant at Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN), Quetta. She writes opinions for Global Security Review, The Diplomatic Insight, and South Asia Monitor. The views expressed are personal. She can be reached atkakarhsa01@gmail.com
