By Admin 
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is facing severe criticism domestically because he has supported US President Donald Trump’s new plan related to Gaza. On January 22, 2026, Trump launched the charter of the ‘Board of Peace’ during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Shahbaz Sharif signed this charter and announced his joining the board.
Pakistan included in the board, India refused
This board has been created to stop the war in Gaza, implement ceasefire, increase humanitarian aid and rebuild Gaza. Trump had proposed it in 2025, which will now be used to resolve global conflicts beyond Gaza. Trump said the war in Gaza is ‘really coming to an end’ and Hamas must surrender its arms. Apart from Pakistan, the board includes countries like UAE, Hungary, Kosovo and Paraguay. India has refused to participate in it.
Shahbaz had opposed Trump 5 years ago
The problem is that in 2020, Shehbaz Sharif (then leader of the opposition) had strongly opposed Trump’s ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan. He called it ‘unjust, biased and oppressive’. On January 29, 2020, he wrote on X, ‘Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan gives Israel legitimacy to occupy Jerusalem and build illegal settlements on Palestinian land. This is an unjust, discriminatory and oppressive ‘Peace Plan’ that the Palestinians have rightly torn up.
President Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan essentially legitimizes Israeli annexation of Jerusalem & illegal settlements on the land of Palestinians. An unjust, biased and oppressive “peace plan” has rightly been torn into pieces by Palestinians.
/ pic courtesy: BBC pic.twitter.com/iXIsZqqcpH
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) January 29, 2020
Now Sharif retracted his statement, protest in Pakistan
Now in 2026, Sharif welcomed Trump’s new plan. He said, ‘I welcome President Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza and provide more humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. I am confident that lasting peace between the Palestinian people and Israel will bring political stability and economic development to the region.
There is huge protest in Pakistan calling this change a U-turn. Main opposition party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said, ‘PTI rejects the decision of the Pakistan government to join the Board of Peace.’ PTI has demanded that the decision be transparent, all parties should be consulted and it should strengthen the UN system, and not create a new parallel structure. PTI said that no plan should be against Palestinian interests.
How are Pakistanis reacting to Shahbaz’s statement?
Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussain called it ‘the most disastrous step for Pakistan’ and asked whether Pakistan wants to remain in Trump’s good books? He called it ‘morally wrong and indefensible’. At the same time, writer Fatima Bhutto wrote, ‘Then Pakistan will sit in the Peace Board with Israel. The same people who are responsible for the Palestinian Holocaust? What a shame.
Activist Ammar Ali Jan called it a ‘shameful betrayal’ and said the decision, taken without discussion in the media or parliament, is a neocolonial arrangement to continue the occupation of Palestine.