DPM Dar concludes UK visit, heads to Istanbul: FO

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday concluded an official visit to the United Kingdom and has departed for Turkiye’s Istanbul, where he will “undertake official engagements,” the Foreign Office (FO) said.

Dar’s visit to Turkiye comes ahead of the upcoming Regional 4 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Istanbul.

In a post on social media platform X, FO said Dar “concluded a successful official visit to the UK”, where he met several officials including UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, Minister of State for Pakistan Stephen Doughty, National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez and Commonwealth Secretary General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.

During the visit, Dar also interacted with British parliamentarians of Pakistani origin and the Pakistani diaspora in the UK.

Earlier this month, Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan invited DPM Dar to the Regional 4 meeting, which includes Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in addition to Turkiye and Pakistan.

Dar had accepted the invitation and confirmed his participation in the meeting.

The R-4 group has been focused on regional security and emerged in March amid efforts for mediation between the US and Iran.

The meeting in Istanbul is planned with the negotiations stalled, as the nearly six-month-old war grinds on with little sign of resolution.

The last R-4 meeting was held in June in Cairo, with the countries then welcoming the signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran.

At the time, FO had said that the “R-4 framework reflects the participating countries’ shared commitment to consultation, cooperation, and coordinated efforts in support of regional peace and prosperity”.

The first meeting was held in Riyadh on the sidelines of a consultative ministerial meeting, while the second meeting was held in Islamabad. Both meetings were held in March.