Sharif set to meet Trump on UNGA sidelines in New York on September 23
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump on September 23 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, according to a media report. The meeting is expected to take place during Sharif's visit to New York for the annual gathering of world leaders.
The News reported on Sunday, citing high-level sources, that Sharif has received an invitation to a reception dinner that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will host for heads of state and government on the evening of September 23. The dinner will be held at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue and will be attended by several world leaders.
Sources told the publication that the gathering will also give Sharif an opportunity to interact with other heads of state and government. The reported meeting with Trump would be their latest face-to-face interaction since the inaugural Board of Peace meeting in Washington in February. The two leaders had also met at the White House in September 2025 and at the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit in Egypt in October last year.
Sharif is scheduled to arrive in New York a day before the reception dinner and is due to address the UN General Assembly on September 25. According to sources, he is expected to raise the issue of India putting the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance in his speech.
The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs the sharing and use of the waters of the six rivers of the Indus river system by India and Pakistan. India put the treaty in abeyance in April 2025 after the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 civilians were killed, saying the move would remain in place until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably ended its support for cross-border terrorism. Islamabad has denied involvement in the attack and rejected India's allegations.
Sources said that, apart from Pakistan's traditional allies, several other countries have assured Islamabad of support for its position. Sharif is also expected to highlight the trilateral collective security arrangement among Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, signed on August 7 in Makkah in western Saudi Arabia.
The arrangement, known as the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, sets up a collective defence framework under which an armed attack on one member is treated as an attack on all three. The high-level General Debate of the 81st UN General Assembly is scheduled from September 22 to 26 and on September 28 at the UN headquarters in New York, with Sharif listed as the fourth speaker during the second half of the session on September 25.
Sharif's New York visit is therefore set to include a reported meeting with Trump, participation in a leaders' dinner and an address to the UN General Assembly in which Pakistan is expected to raise the Indus Waters Treaty issue and its new defence arrangement with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.
