“Pakistan also stands in full solidarity with all our brotherly countries and underscores the need to exercise maximum restraint,” Dar said, adding that PM Shehbaz, and Field Marshal Asim Munir in conversation with his counterparts, have been conveying the same.

The foreign minister stated: “We acknowledge that the main target of Iran’s retaliatory strikes were in self-defence, but Pakistan deeply regrets and condemns the strikes on brotherly countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Oman.

“We can’t have double standards,” he said, recalling that Pakistan was one of the first to condemn the attacks on Iran, but the self-defence actions “compounded and complicated the situation on the ground”.

Dar further said, “They (Iran) are a sovereign state and it’s their decision, they say ‘we have not attacked those countries, we attacked the American base there or their installation there’.

“But there is still no justification because of the panic, see what’s the turmoil in the entire region … I myself had to find ways to get back to the country and the entire airspace was closed.”