Pakistan urges diplomacy, detainee protections at UN Security Council Ukraine meeting

At the United Nations on Monday, Pakistan's representative to the Security Council made a straightforward case: the war in Ukraine needs to end through negotiation, and everyone fighting it needs to follow the rules of war. Kamran Taj, a counsellor at Pakistan's UN mission, spoke during an informal Arria-formula meeting—the kind of closed-door gathering where diplomats can speak frankly without the usual public posturing. The meeting, organized by Latvia, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, had a specific focus: what happens to soldiers captured in combat, civilians detained by warring parties, and the foreign fighters who have streamed into the conflict.

Taj's message was measured but firm. He told the 15-member Council that every party to the conflict must respect international humanitarian law—the body of rules meant to protect people in wartime. He singled out the treatment of prisoners of war, condemning any abuse. But he also acknowledged something that has actually been working: the regular exchanges of captured soldiers that the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Turkey have been brokering between Russia and Ukraine. Pakistan views these swaps as evidence that dialogue, even in the midst of fighting, can produce results.

The delegate raised a second concern that has preoccupied international security experts for years: the flow of foreign fighters into the conflict. Thousands of volunteers and mercenaries from dozens of countries have joined the fighting on both sides. Taj noted that this phenomenon has grown sharply and called for it to stop. The involvement of foreign combatants, he suggested, complicates an already devastating war and pulls in actors with their own agendas, making a settlement harder to reach.

Underlying all of this was Pakistan's core position: diplomacy works, and it should be tried. The country has long positioned itself as a believer in dialogue over force, and Taj reiterated that commitment here. Pakistan, he said, would continue backing diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the conflict. But the settlement, he insisted, had to be just and lasting—one that respected the UN Charter, international law, and the legitimate security concerns of all sides. It was a careful formulation: not a call for Ukraine to surrender, not a demand that Russia withdraw unconditionally, but rather a plea for a negotiated outcome that all parties could live with.

The Arria-formula meeting itself reflects how the Security Council sometimes operates when the usual formal sessions become too rigid or politically charged. Named after Diego Arria, a former Venezuelan ambassador, these informal gatherings let Council members speak candidly without the weight of official statements and vetoes hanging over the conversation. In this case, the format allowed Pakistan to make its case without the theatrical grandstanding that often marks public Council debates. The focus on prisoners and detainees—a humanitarian angle rather than a geopolitical one—gave the discussion a different texture than the usual arguments about who started the war or who is winning it. Pakistan's intervention suggested that even amid the conflict's brutality, there are rules that matter and mechanisms, however fragile, that can work.