Pakistan Joins Gaza Board, Modi Yet to Say Yes/No to Trump's Plan to Weaken UN; Crashed Air India 787 'Had History of Faults'; Kashmir Reporters Face Police Harassment
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January 21, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
Pakistan has accepted US President Donald Trump’s invitation to join the Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ which he is setting up and leading. In a joint statement issued today, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar welcomed the invitation “extended to their leaders” by Trump and announced their countries’ “shared decision to join the Board of Peace.”
The Sharif government’s decision is not popular in Pakistan. “Morally incorrect and indefensible” is how analysts and politicians are describing the move, reports Dawn.
Pakistan’s decision will sharpen the dilemma confronting Narendra Modi and his advisors. Turning down Trump’s invitation when Sharif has said yes may further tilt the US in Islamabad’s direction. But appeasing Trump by accepting the invitation will further erode India’s global credibility and shred what remains of its ‘strategic autonomy’.
Given its provenance—the fact that the ceasefire that slowed, but did not end, Israel’s genocide in Gaza was made conditional upon it—it is clear that the so-called Board for Peace is designed to entrench the denial of Palestine’s right to self-determination. It also seeks to displace the United Nations from its role as guarantor of the Palestinian people’s right to an independent and secure state, as affirmed in Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and legitimise Israel’s land grab.
Fun fact: Israel is going to join Trump’s Board (why wouldn’t it?) but Benjamin Netanyahu will not be present at the inauguration ceremony at Davos on
