IslamabadPakistan mediated US-Iran war talks, PM Shehbaz said.
Pakistan’s military government won US backing by hosting the negotiations while opposition leader Imran Khan remains imprisoned.
Talks with Iran’s FM Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff were set to continue with no outcome date announced.
Sources: Drop Site News
THE GEOGRAPHIC LOGIC
Pakistan shares a 909km border with Iran and is one of only two Muslim-majority nuclear states. It sits between Iran and the Gulf, between Iran and India, and on the land route from China to the Arabian Sea. Any Iran crisis routes through Pakistani airspace, ports, or borders by default.
THE SAUDI HEDGE
Pakistan has long played a dual role: deep military ties with Saudi Arabia (Pakistani troops have garrisoned the kingdom since the 1970s) while maintaining the only Sunni-state diplomatic channel to Tehran that Riyadh trusts. When Saudi Arabia and Iran restored relations in 2023, the Beijing-brokered deal built on years of quiet Pakistani shuttle work.
THE ARMY RUNS FOREIGN POLICY
Pakistan's civilian PM signs the communiques, but the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) and the army chief decide regional posture. Every major diplomatic opening — the 2001 US-Afghan war logistics, the 1971 Nixon-to-Beijing channel, the 2023 Saudi-Iran groundwork — was an army decision dressed in civilian language.
THE NIXON PRECEDENT
In 1971, Pakistan's General Yahya Khan carried Kissinger's secret message to Zhou Enlai, opening the US-China channel that reshaped the Cold War. Islamabad's value to Washington has often been its access to states America cannot talk to directly — China then, Iran and the Taliban now.
WHY IRAN TRUSTS THE CHANNEL
Pakistan never joined US sanctions on Iran, never closed its embassy, and operates the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline (partially built, mostly stalled) and shared Baluch border-security arrangements. The Iran-Pakistan relationship has friction — Jaish al-Adl attacks, the 2024 cross-border strikes — but the diplomatic line never broke.
THE KHAN PROBLEM
Imran Khan, ousted in 2022 and imprisoned since 2023, remains Pakistan's most popular politician by polling. The military government's legitimacy gap abroad is plugged by being useful — hosting US-Iran talks is exactly the kind of utility that buys Washington's silence on democratic backsliding.