Dar Urges ECO Reforms and Regional Security Alignment in New York

At the 27th informal meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) Council of Ministers in New York, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar delivered a comprehensive address highlighting the intersection of security volatility and economic underperformance across Eurasia. Addressing foreign ministers and institutional representatives, Dar stressed that persistent conflict in the Middle East alongside escalating regional security frictions directly compromise economic development for the organization's member states.

Dar framed Pakistan’s diplomatic foreign policy around peaceful negotiated dispute resolutions anchored in international law. His address marked an explicit push to pivot the ten-member bloc toward operational reforms, economic integration, and tangible infrastructure delivery, particularly as Islamabad prepares to assume the chairmanship of the ECO Council of Ministers for the 2026–2027 period and host the 30th ministerial meeting in Islamabad this coming November.

Central to Dar’s address was a candid critique of the bloc’s current economic footprint relative to its size. Despite occupying eight million square kilometers and encompassing nearly half a billion people, the ECO region accounts for just 2.2 percent of global trade. Furthermore, intra-regional trade remains stubbornly stagnant at approximately 8 percent of total member trade, reflecting severe institutional and logistical bottlenecks that Pakistan aims to address during its leadership term.

• Anemic Intra-Regional Commerce: The ECO bloc represents 500 million people but accounts for only 2.2 percent of world trade, with intra-regional trade languishing at 8 percent.
• Roadmap for ECO Free Trade Area: Member states are targeting the realization of a digitally enabled ECO Free Trade Area, building upon the structural roadmap approved by ECO trade ministers in November 2025.
• Afghanistan Security Imperative: Dar highlighted that terrorism originating from Afghan territory undercuts regional growth, calling for concrete action from the Taliban regime against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).
• Central Asia-Arabian Sea Transit: Pakistan reiterated its commitment to act as a primary trade gateway, advocating for transport networks linking Central Asian states to ports in Karachi and Gwadar.
• Institutional Restructuring: Islamabad called for an overhaul of the ECO Secretariat and affiliated institutions to streamline operations and realign mandates with modern geopolitical realities.
• Decadal Framework (2026–2035): Pakistan is advancing the Strategic Goals of Economic Cooperation 2026–2035 to set structural priorities for trade, transit, climate adaptation, and energy over the next decade.

The economic disconnect within the ECO region underscores decades of unfulfilled potential. Trade tariffs, regulatory friction, and inconsistent customs procedures have continuously stymied commerce among member nations. For commercial enterprises across South and Central Asia, the absence of a operational ECO Free Trade Area means export capabilities remain severely constrained. Lowering non-tariff barriers and harmonizing digital customs workflows could substantially expand market access for agriculture, textiles, and manufacturing, yet execution relies heavily on sustained political consensus among key states including Pakistan, Turkey, and Iran.

Concurrently, security instability in Afghanistan remains the principal spoiler for transit corridors. While Islamabad continues to support multilateral infrastructure ventures—most notably the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (UAP) railway project—the persistence of cross-border attacks by militant groups operates as a primary deterrent to institutional investment. Dar made clear that while Pakistan extended bilateral and transit trade concessions to Kabul, sustained economic assistance remains contingent on verifiable security commitments. Without absolute border stability, transit infrastructure connecting landlocked Central Asian economies to deep-water ports on the Arabian Sea will face prohibitive risk premiums.

Furthermore, the region faces compounding non-traditional threats, particularly water scarcity and extreme weather events brought on by climate change. Industrial and agricultural yields across Central and South Asia are increasingly exposed to environmental shifts, making joint disaster risk reduction and climate-resilient infrastructure planning an economic necessity rather than a peripheral policy goal.

Established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey before expanding in 1992 to include seven additional nations—Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—the ECO was conceived as a regional counterweight to Western trade blocs. However, trade volumes within the organization have consistently lagged behind comparable regional alignments such as ASEAN or the European Union due to ideological divergences, unilateral sanctions on member states, and chronic infrastructure deficits.

Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan have grown increasingly complex following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. While Islamabad initially advocated for international engagement with Kabul and facilitated trade concessions, repeated border skirmishes and sanctuary granted to anti-Pakistan militant factions have strained bilateral mechanisms. Dar’s dual focus in New York reflects Islamabad’s strategy of coupling economic connectivity initiatives with rigorous border security demands.

“"Peace and development in the region can only be achieved with the elimination of the terrorist threat from Afghanistan, allowing collective potential to translate into deeper economic integration."”

Moving toward the 30th ECO Council of Ministers meeting in Islamabad in November, political focus will turn to concrete legislative and administrative actions. Market observers and regional policymakers should monitor whether member states can formalize binding tariffs under the ECO Trade Agreement (ECOTA). Resolving long-standing regulatory deadlocks will be crucial to shifting intra-regional trade past its historical 8 percent benchmark.

On the security and transport front, progress on the feasibility study for the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway will serve as a primary litmus test for regional stability. If the Taliban regime takes operational measures against TTP and BLA networks, infrastructure capital could flow more reliably into cross-border rail and road projects. Conversely, continued security lapses will likely force regional stakeholders to prioritize alternative trade routes, bypassing volatile transit points entirely.