UN Security Council adopts Pakistan-initiated statement on diplomacy during active hostilities
The United Nations Security Council has adopted by consensus a presidential statement initiated by Pakistan on the role of diplomacy during active hostilities, building on its landmark resolution 2788 of 2025.
The United Nations Security Council has adopted by consensus a presidential statement initiated by Pakistan on “The Role of Diplomacy during Active Hostilities”, a move Islamabad says puts the question of keeping diplomacy alive once fighting has begun at the centre of the Council’s work.
The statement was adopted on Thursday, 5 November, the Foreign Office said, and was announced by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, who described the adoption as a significant diplomatic achievement for Pakistan. Presidential statements are adopted by consensus of all 15 members of the Council and express its collective position, although, unlike resolutions, they are not legally binding.
The new statement builds directly on Security Council resolution 2788 (2025), which was adopted unanimously in July 2025 during Pakistan’s presidency of the Council. That resolution reaffirmed the Council’s commitment to the peaceful settlement of disputes under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, and the new text takes the idea a step further by focusing specifically on what diplomacy is supposed to do after armed conflict has already broken out.
According to the Foreign Office, the statement reaffirms that diplomatic efforts must continue at all stages of the conflict cycle, and underscores the importance of maintaining diplomatic engagement even after the outbreak of armed conflict, with a view to containing escalation, facilitating cessations of hostilities and ceasefires, and creating conditions for peaceful political settlements.
“When hostilities intensify, diplomacy must not retreat,” Dar said, adding that diplomacy must become an even more powerful instrument for de-escalation, dialogue and peace. Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations published a press stakeout by Ambassador Syed Haider Shah after the adoption, and Dar said the statement showed how a non-permanent member could still shape the Council’s agenda.
The text also emphasises the importance of maintaining direct and indirect channels of communication between parties to armed conflict, to reduce the risk of miscalculation and to create opportunities for sustained political engagement. It is the first Council product to focus specifically on the role of diplomacy in containing and de-escalating active hostilities, rather than on preventing conflicts or on post-conflict peacebuilding.
The road to adoption was a long one. Pakistan circulated the initial draft to Council members on 14 October, followed by a first revised draft on 23 October after informal consultations, and a second revised draft on 29 October that was placed under silence procedure. After the United States broke silence, a third revised draft was circulated on 3 November and placed under silence procedure until the morning of 4 November, when it passed, clearing the way for Thursday’s adoption.
The adoption comes at a moment when the Council is seized with several active conflicts, and when Pakistan has been pressing a broader case that the Council should act earlier and rely more on mediation and regional cooperation. Only days earlier, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, told the Council that unilateral military actions only deepen conflicts and entrench divisions, and that dialogue and diplomacy remain the only viable path forward.
Pakistan is serving a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for 2025–26, and the statement is the latest in a series of initiatives it has led from that seat. Earlier in the week, a Pakistan-backed UN arms control resolution was adopted in the General Assembly by 180 votes to two, with only India and Israel voting against it, underlining Islamabad’s effort to use multilateral forums to press its positions.
Islamabad has also pointed to its own recent mediation work as evidence that diplomacy can work even in the middle of a crisis. Its envoy told the Council that Pakistan continues to play a constructive mediating role between Iran and the United States, and that engagement facilitated by Islamabad culminated in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding and the initiation of subsequent negotiations, opening channels, bringing parties together and saving lives.
What happens next will depend on whether the statement is taken up in practice. The Council has not yet published the agreed text as a numbered document, so the detailed wording rests for now on the Foreign Office’s account of its own initiative, and the statement itself creates no binding obligations. But its supporters argue that, by putting the Council on record in favour of keeping diplomatic channels open during fighting, it gives diplomats and mediators a text to cite the next time a conflict erupts — and a reminder that the Council’s own position is that war should not mean the end of talking.
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