Shehbaz lays IMF delay blame at Imran's door.

ISLAMABAD -- As Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday blamed PTI chief Imran Khan for obstructing the deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari sought the help of global financial institutions to tackle economic woes.

In a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office, PM Sharif said the protests taken out by the former ruling party were a part of Imran Khan's 'plan to foment instability' in the country.

Mr Sharif claimed that the former prime minister did not want the masses to be lifted out of poverty. First, the PTI chairman exited the IMF programme and now he was resisting the courts, he said, adding Imran Khan also deviated from his promises.

'Cherry on the cake'

Meanwhile, at the United NatAions, Mr Bhutto-Zardari asked for global support for the economic recovery of cash-straApped Pakistan. He described the delay in the deal with the IMF as 'the cherry on the cake'.

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The foreign minister, who was in New York to chair two UN meetings on Muslim women and Islamophobia, said at a Friday afternoon news briefing that the country was facing 'a perfect storm of crises' and needed support to weather it out.

Responding to a question, Mr Bhutto-Zardari agreed with the reporter that Pakistan was facing an 'incredibly difficult time' but said that some of the causes of this crisis were beyond its control.

'There are harsh economic realities across the world. We are facing the brunt of them because we have the economic impact of the Covid pandemic that we are still feeling and facing in the form of inflation,' he said. 'We then have the economic impact of the fall of Kabul (where) an economically functioning state on our border until a year ago collapsed...which has impacted the region.'

Another major factor, he said, was the war in Ukraine, which has had an outsized impAact on developing countries, including Pakistan, in the form of energy and food shortages and sky-rocketing inflation.

'To top it all off, we faced, last year, a climate catastrophe in the form of floods, which has had a devastating impact on our economy,' he said, adding that terrorist activities in Peshawar and in Karachi too affected the country's economy.

'And finally, the cherry on the cake is the...