<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar has been appointed deputy prime minister, the ministry of foreign affairs said on Sunday in a post on X.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The Prime Minister has been pleased to designate Mr. Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, as Deputy Prime Minister with immediate effect,” a Pakistan government gazette posted by the foreign ministry read.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dar will continue in his role as foreign minister, Pakistani media said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The appointment comes a month after Pakistan’s parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister after a national election marred by mobile internet shutdown, arrests, and violence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pakistan struggled for over four months to lock in a stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund last summer when Dar was finance minister, and it took the intervention of his prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, to secure a last-ditch deal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dar has also regularly criticised the IMF on public platforms in the middle of negotiations, and has long favoured market interventions to prop up the Pakistani rupee – something the IMF has warned against. - Reuters</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd/fas</div>