Pakistan ‘ready to host US-Iran talks’: Can latest peace push work? | US-Israel war on Iran News

Islamabad, Pakistan – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said Pakistan is ready to host talks between the United States and Iran amid US President Donald Trump’s claims of ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

“If the parties desire, Islamabad is always willing to host talks,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told Al Jazeera on Tuesday. “It has consistently advocated for dialogue and diplomacy to promote peace and stability in the region.”

Hours later, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also wrote on X that Pakistan “stands ready and honoured to be the host to facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks for a comprehensive settlement of the ongoing conflict”.

Iran has categorically denied that it is engaged in any talks with the US, contradicting Trump.

But multiple US and Israeli media outlets have reported that Pakistan, Egypt and Turkiye have been serving as messengers between Washington and Tehran, hoping to broker an off-ramp in a war that has led to the greatest energy crisis in modern history.

Some of those reports have suggested that Islamabad could emerge as the city to host talks later this week. According to US-based outlet Axios, two possible formats are under discussion for a meeting in Islamabad. One involves Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Another envisions US Vice President JD Vance meeting Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has dismissed Trump’s claims of talks as an attempt to “escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped”.

Still, some facts are confirmed: Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir spoke to President Trump on Sunday. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian a day later. This was followed by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar holding separate calls with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts.

Fragile diplomacy, hardened positions

The picture emerging from analysts and officials is one of tentative but fragile diplomatic movement, significant enough to pause some military activity but not yet amounting to substantive negotiations.

Trump claimed the US and Iran had already reached “major points of agreement”, suggesting tentative steps towards de-escalation in the US-Israel war on Iran.

Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that messages had arrived through “friendly countries”, conveying a US request for negotiations, but said Iran had responded according to “the country’s principled positions”.

An Iranian official, quoted by state-linked Press TV, outlined Tehran’s conditions for ending the war on Monday. These included guarantees against future military action, closure of all US military bases in the Gulf region, full reparations from Washington and Tel Aviv, an end to regional conflicts involving Iran-aligned groups, and a new legal framework governing the Strait of Hormuz.

The White House has declined to spell out details of the talks that Trump claims were held. “These are sensitive diplomatic discussions, and the US will not negotiate through the press,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Trump’s approach followed a familiar pattern.

Washington, he argued, has relied on sustained military and economic pressure to force Tehran to negotiate on US terms, a strategy that has yet to succeed.

“This is consistent with Trump’s resort to gunboat diplomacy and his assumption that he can continue to pressure and threaten Iranians into negotiating,” he told Al Jazeera. “We have seen, however, that there has been resistance to this sort of pressure tactic by the Iranian side and that the Iranians have not responded to threats the way the Americans have anticipated.”

Part of the explanation for the Iranian refusal to succumb to Trump’s pressure, analysts say, is structural. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued that the war had — paradoxically — strengthened Iran’s position on the key issue of sanctions.

“The reality is that the war has provided Iran with de facto sanctions relief. Iran is exporting more oil now than before the war at twice the price,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the Trump administration’s decision, last week, to lift sanctions on Iranian oil already on boats out at sea. “It has leverage, and it will not agree to end the war without formalising sanctions relief.”

That, he added, is precisely what Washington appears reluctant to offer. “I am not seeing signs in the US that Trump is fully ready for serious diplomacy, since it will have to entail sanctions relief for Iran.”

Khalid Masood, a former Pakistani diplomat and envoy to China, said pressure to find an exit was nonetheless mounting on all sides.

“The US has also realised there are limits to hard power, you can be powerful and still not achieve everything in your favour,” he said. “There is war fatigue, with regional and global fallout, and US allies are feeling it. When you put all of this in context, one comes to the conclusion that the US is now keen on some kind of arrangement,” Masood told Al Jazeera.

Dania Thafer, executive director of the Gulf International Forum, however, urged caution. Any settlement, she said, would require sustained and intensive diplomacy.

“Iran, for its part, may also seek to impose sufficient costs to reinforce long-term deterrence, and it is not yet clear that it believes this objective has been met,” she told Al Jazeera.

War escalation and global stakes

After 12 days of fighting last year, and months of sabre rattling since the beginning of this year, the latest war on Iran began on February 28 when the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and many other senior officials, just a day after Oman’s foreign minister had declared a breakthrough “within reach”.

Iran responded with sustained missile and drone attacks on Israel, US bases and civilian infrastructure across Gulf states.

The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that the disruption already exceeds the combined oil crises of 1973 and 1979. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global crude oil flows, has effectively been closed since the first day of the war, though Iran has in recent days allowed a few tankers from India, Pakistan, China and Turkiye to pass through, and is in talks with other countries — including Japan — to allow their vessels transit through the narrow passageway.

Trump had initially announced a 48-hour ultimatum for Iran to reopen the strait or face strikes on its power plants, which was due to expire on Monday night. Hours before that, he announced a five-day pause on those attacks, which will end on Saturday.

Even as diplomacy appears to have kicked in, the Pentagon accelerated deployments to the Gulf. The USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit were moved from California three weeks before schedule.

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit on board the USS Tripoli is already en route from Japan. The US is also weighing options, including seizing Kharg Island, which handles about 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports, and sending ground forces to secure Tehran’s enriched uranium stockpiles.

The US has already struck military installations on Kharg Island, warning that critical oil facilities could be targeted if Iran continues to block the strait.

Masood said the parallel military build-up was deliberate.

“The US is still moving the Marines, which signals that if the talks do not work out, it could lead to something,” he said.

“Israel wants the action to continue and is likely unhappy with the talks. The Israelis might well play the role of spoiler. If this process does not reach a conclusion, then the US and Israel will resort to force, which would be deeply unfortunate.”

Pakistan’s diplomatic opening

Pakistan’s role in the current diplomacy draws on a set of relationships built over time.

When Munir visited the White House for an unprecedented lunch meeting with Trump in June 2025, the first time a US president had hosted a Pakistani military chief who was not also president, Trump said publicly that Pakistan “knows Iran very well, better than most”.

The meeting, which lasted more than two hours, included discussions of rising Israel-Iran tensions.

Ahead of last year’s strikes, Munir also travelled to Iran alongside Sharif, meeting senior Iranian officials.

Since the war began in February, Islamabad has maintained its outreach. On March 3, Foreign Minister Dar told parliament that Pakistan was “ready to facilitate dialogue between Washington and Tehran in Islamabad”.

In the same address, Dar revealed that Pakistan had pushed back against Washington’s demand for zero uranium enrichment, instead proposing a monitored framework. “It was agreed that there should be surveillance of two to three countries, and Iran was happy with that,” he said.

Pakistan’s leverage lies in a rare combination of ties. It is the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons and does not host US military bases.

It maintains longstanding ties with Saudi Arabia, dating back to 1947, reinforced by a strategic defence pact signed in September 2025. At the same time, it shares a 900km (560-mile) border with Iran and hosts the world’s second-largest Shia Muslim population.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, recently referenced Pakistan in a message marking the Persian New Year, Nowruz, saying he had a “special feeling” towards its people.

Masood said these overlapping relationships give Islamabad credibility.

“Pakistan’s importance also stems from its standing as a major Islamic country with considerable credibility. It has ties with the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia, and with Iran; everybody is open to Pakistan playing a mediating role,” he said. “Iran has publicly praised us, and in that sense, Pakistan is well-placed to make a positive contribution.”

Former diplomat Salman Bashir said mediation also serves Pakistan’s own interests.

“Pakistan’s relations with the Trump administration have been very good, and we have been talking to Iran as well,” he said. “It would very much be in our interest, because we could be affected by this conflict.”

Quincy Institute’s Parsi agreed Pakistan is well-positioned but cautioned that timing remains critical.

“Pakistan is well-positioned to help advance the diplomacy, but ultimately, the conflict has to be ripe for mediation,” he said. “It does not appear that it is quite yet, but it is important to begin the diplomacy before the moment of ripeness has arrived.”

The groundwork for the latest diplomatic push was laid in Riyadh last week, when Saudi Arabia convened an emergency meeting of foreign ministers from 12 Arab and Islamic countries, including Pakistan and Turkiye.

The meeting produced a joint statement condemning Iran’s attacks on Gulf countries’ infrastructure and affirming their right to self-defence.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud warned that Riyadh’s patience was not unlimited and that the kingdom “reserves the right to take military action if deemed necessary”.

On the sidelines, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkiye also held a separate coordination meeting, the first in that format, and some Pakistani sources say Islamabad’s emergence as a potential venue for dialogue between the US and Iran stems from that meeting.

Meanwhile, the Gulf states, which have been targeted by Iran, have notably stayed out of formal mediation.

Thafer of the Gulf International Forum said the calculus was unlikely to shift until the attacks on Gulf countries stopped.

“For some Gulf states, stopping hostilities against their respective country would be a prerequisite for taking on any meaningful mediating role,” she said. “If a country such as Pakistan or any other country were able to facilitate that outcome, it would likely be viewed positively across Gulf capitals.”

Kamrava identified Israel as a central obstacle, even though the US and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were willing to end the war on Iran.

“Israel does not want an end to the war and does not want the US to negotiate with Iran, directly or through intermediaries like Pakistan,” he said. “The GCC and the US want the war to end, and end soon, and therefore welcome it.”

On the limits of mediation, he was blunt. “No one can compel Iran to negotiate. It seems that Iran has the real leverage here through its missile capabilities.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he had spoken to Trump about the negotiations, and that the US president believed that there was a chance to leverage gains made by US and Israeli troops in Iran to “realise the war’s objectives through an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests”.

However, he stopped short of endorsing the talks and made clear that Israeli strikes in Iran would continue regardless.

Parsi said regional actors would need to exert pressure on Washington as well as Tehran.

“Trump has in the past shown that he listens when regional players present their position as a bloc,” he said. “Israel will undoubtedly seek to sabotage any such efforts, though.”

Masood, the ex-Pakistani diplomat, however, saw a convergence of interests.

“I think everybody should want this to succeed,” he said. “The Israelis have taken a significant hit in the last few weeks, so there would be a general interest among all parties in finding an off-ramp and an avenue for de-escalation.”