ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is pressing ahead with its mediation between Washington and Tehran even as the diplomatic framework it built has expired and American sanctions pressure closes in on Islamabad itself.
Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, accompanied by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, spent Monday on a daylong mission to Tehran — Munir’s third visit to Iran this year. The pair moved through the presidency, parliament, the Supreme National Security Council and the foreign and interior ministries, meeting President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and General Mohsen Rezaei, representative of the supreme leader and secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.
Pakistani officials described significant progress in the talks, which are aimed at ending the United States–Israel war on Iran.
The timing is difficult. The 60-day window set out in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding — signed by Pakistan, Iran and the United States on June 17 — lapsed in mid-August without either side agreeing to an extension.
The pressure has intensified since. The Trump administration has warned of severe economic penalties for any country supporting Iran, while Tehran has threatened to shut down Gulf oil exports entirely in response. A US-hosted G20 finance meeting is set to target the Iran sanctions regime, according to a Treasury official.
Movement on the Strait of Hormuz remains the pivot. Iran’s top security official Rezaei this week set out conditions for reopening the waterway, while the US Central Command chief said the shipping lanes had been cleared of Iranian mines. Shipping traffic through the strait slipped below its ten-day average on Friday. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said diplomacy could get back on track if Washington recognised that pressure does not work, urging the US to build trust, speak respectfully and uphold its commitments.
Analysts differ sharply on the weight of Islamabad’s channel. Andreas Krieg, associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that Qatar — not Pakistan — remains the primary conduit. “Qatar is leading the political mediation and remains the essential communication bridge between Washington and Tehran,” he said, characterising Munir’s contribution as narrower: a military-to-military channel into an Iranian system in which the IRGC and the wider security establishment have become increasingly central to decisions on war and peace.
Qatar’s prime minister held talks in Tehran this week on a parallel track to revive US–Iran dialogue.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office has meanwhile pushed back on characterisations of its role. On Wednesday, the FO spokesperson dismissed as “incorrect and misleading” claims that Munir had travelled to Iran as an envoy for the United States.
Islamabad is navigating a genuinely awkward position: mediating a conflict while simultaneously exposed to the sanctions regime targeting one of the parties. Pakistan has been treading carefully as Washington tightens enforcement, and separately moved this week to break a long-running deadlock over the Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline, forming a high-powered body as penalty threats mount. That dispute is currently before an international arbitration tribunal in Paris.
Earlier in the crisis, Islamabad secured a limited but symbolically important concession: Iran agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz, two crossing daily, in an arrangement announced by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.
Running alongside the mediation is Pakistan’s deepening security alignment with the Gulf. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Friday that the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement had sent a “message of peace, unity throughout the region,” arguing it had brought Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye closer together, and calling for Islamabad and Riyadh to deepen economic cooperation.
Signed on August 7 in Makkah by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Sharif, the pact stipulates that an armed attack on any signatory will be treated as an attack on all three. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has described it as intended to strengthen collective deterrence. The three states’ combined defence budgets run to roughly $124.4 billion annually.
The war’s costs, meanwhile, continue to land on Pakistani households. Petrol was cut by Rs0.50 and high-speed diesel by Rs0.19 with effect from Friday, after an increase earlier in the week — the government is now revising fuel prices every few days as global markets swing with the conflict.
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