{"id":361960,"date":"2026-03-24T04:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/361960\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T04:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:27:09","slug":"pakistan-moves-into-position-as-mediator-in-us-israeli-war-on-iran-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/361960\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan moves into position as mediator in US-Israeli war on Iran \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pakistan<\/a> is positioning itself as the lead mediator trying to broker an end to the US\u2019s and Israel\u2019s war against Iran<\/a>, using its military strongman\u2019s ties to Tehran and warm relationship with Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two officials familiar with the discussions said Pakistan has pitched Islamabad as a venue for talks in the coming days involving senior figures from the Trump administration and Iran.<\/p>\n

Army chief Asim Munir spoke to Trump on Sunday, according to two people briefed on the call, while Pakistani prime minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held talks with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday.<\/p>\n

The conversation between the Pakistani and Iranian leaders came at about the same time as Trump announced that he was delaying his threat to \u201cobliterate\u201d Iran\u2019s power plants after \u201cvery good and productive\u201d conversations with Tehran to end the war.<\/p>\n

It was not clear if Pakistan\u2019s mediation push and Trump\u2019s post on his Truth Social social media platform, which caused oil prices to fall sharply, were related. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump negotiations. \u201cThese are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the United States will not negotiate through the news media,\u201d the White House said.<\/p>\n

Turkey, which was involved in mediation efforts before the war, has also been talking to Iranian officials and Trump\u2019s envoy Steve Witkoff in an attempt to secure a brief ceasefire and open space for negotiations. <\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s foreign minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar held talks with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan on Monday. Egypt\u2019s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty also spoke to his Iranian and Pakistani counterparts on Sunday, as well as Witkoff and Qatar\u2019s foreign minister.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s foreign ministry denied there had been any direct negotiations with the US since the start of the war, but said that some regional states were involved in mediation efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past few days messages were received via certain friendly states conveying the US request for negotiations to end the war,\u201d Esmaeil Baqaei, the foreign ministry\u2019s spokesman, told official news agency IRNA. \u201cAppropriate responses were given [to those initiatives] in accordance with the country\u2019s fundamental positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesman insisted there had been no changes to Iran\u2019s positions regarding the situation at the Strait of Hormuz or Tehran\u2019s conditions for ending the war, according to IRNA.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Iran war could push tens of millions globally into acute hungerOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Analysts and diplomats cautioned against the prospect of the success of any mediations as the war stretches into its fourth week. People briefed on the matter said the diplomatic efforts involved very early-stage messaging, rather than a formal process.<\/p>\n

Sanam Vakil at the Chatham House think tank said several countries were \u201cscrambling\u201d to de-escalate the conflict but said: \u201cI don\u2019t take this as any signal the war is coming to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said it could be Trump walking back his threat because of pressure from Gulf states. Iran vowed to respond to any attack on its power plants by targeting vital infrastructure across the region, including energy facilities and water desalination plants.<\/p>\n

Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday evening that the US would strike Iran\u2019s power plants, \u201cstarting with the biggest one\u201d, if Tehran did not allow vessels to transit through the waterway, through which about a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and gas normally passes.<\/p>\n

On Monday he said he would suspend that threat by five days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s positive to play out what a compromise and agreement might look like, but I don\u2019t see a willingness on either side to compromise,\u201d Vakil said. \u201cI don\u2019t think Trump can walk away from this crisis of his making.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I just don\u2019t see Iran caving,\u201d she said. \u201cThey feel they have the upper hand and the leverage \u2013 this is again about their survival and the conditions that will assure their survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mediation between the US and Iran has typically been facilitated by Oman and Qatar. But regional officials said there had been no momentum behind diplomatic efforts since the US and Israel launched the war two days after a round of talks between the Trump administration and Iranian officials in Geneva.<\/p>\n

Two people briefed on the matter said senior Pakistani officials were back-channelling communications between Tehran and Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump\u2019s son-in-law and envoy. Sharif has spoken to Pezeshkian multiple times since the war started.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile sharing with the Iranian president the diplomatic outreach efforts of Pakistan\u2019s leadership, the prime minister assured the Iranian leadership that Pakistan would continue to play a constructive role in facilitating peace,\u201d Pakistan said in a readout of their conversation on Monday.<\/p>\n

Dar told Arab counterparts at a meeting in Riyadh last week that Islamabad was mediating between the US and Iran but did not provide details, a diplomat said. The diplomat said Pakistan was leading mediation efforts.<\/p>\n

Pakistan, which does not host any American bases, is one of the few US allies in the region that has been spared Tehran\u2019s missiles and drones. That fact has helped shore it up as a neutral arbiter to Iran and the US, according to three people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

Pakistan has the second-largest Shia Muslim population after Iran, while having close relations with Gulf states, including a mutual defence pact signed last year with Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

It is also vulnerable to the repercussions of conflict as it depends on the Gulf for oil and gas imports.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei namechecked Pakistan in a written message published in Iranian media to mark the start of the Iranian new year last week, saying he had a special feeling towards the people of Pakistan. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Consequences of war in Iran set to be long-lastingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pakistan is positioning itself as the lead mediator trying to broker an end to the US\u2019s and Israel\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,11829,150432,43,3324,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-361960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}