The Islamabad Channel – OpEd |
There are no conspiracy-laden whispers from Islamabad defining the moment, no indulgence in side dramas when the main theatre is burning.
In a war that has already widened beyond its original theatres and begun to reorder alignments across the Gulf, Pakistan now finds itself in an unusual position. For someone who grew up watching Pakistan treated as a pariah on the global stage, with officials like Nikki Haley castigating Islamabad for playing “double games” as recently as 2018, it is incredibly refreshing to see the government not shift weight from one foot to another as a bystander. Today, Pakistan is not merely watching events from a difficult neighbourhood, but working a diplomatic line that runs between Tehran, Washington, and Riyadh.
Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt arrived in the federal capital for a quadrilateral meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar this weekend for the declared purpose of discussing “ways for early and permanent end” to the US-Israel war on Iran and the wider instability it has unleashed.
The change in the status quo matters. Islamabad is not presenting itself as a grand broker of peace, which would be too ambitious and too easy to dismiss. It is presenting itself as a workable channel at a time when channels are scarce, trust is brittle, and the military tempo of the war keeps outrunning politics. This is why Pakistan’s role has become much, much more than ceremonial.
FM Dar has publicly stated that US-Iran indirect talks are taking place through messages being relayed by Pakistan. Similarly, news sources from all around the world have reported that Washington’s 15-point proposal was conveyed through Islamabad, with Steve Witkoff calling it “the framework for a peace deal” and adding that the United States saw the moment as the inflection point with no good alternatives for them, other than more death and destruction.
The novelty lies not only in the message-carrying. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pakistan’s mediating role began as early as September, when it helped pass messages between Iran and the United States on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in an unsuccessful effort to revive nuclear diplomacy. That earlier attempt may not have succeeded, but it established something that matters in diplomacy more than flourish does: a line of contact that both sides were prepared to use when the temperature rose. By late March, that line had become important enough for foreign ministers from three major Muslim states to fly into Islamabad and work from there.
Iran’s public language remains guarded, yet it is not dismissive of Islamabad’s role. President Masoud Pezeshkian has already told Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that “trust” was needed to facilitate negotiations and mediation, while also praising Pakistan’s efforts to stop the war.
It would be a grave error to make light of Iran’s state position, which insists on an “end to aggression by the enemy,” “concrete guarantees preventing the recurrence of war,” payment of damages and recognition of Iran’s authority over the Strait of Hormuz. By any and all accounts, Tehran is not negotiating from weakness; it is setting conditions for any political track that might follow the guns.
Washington’s tone is different, as one would expect. President Donald Trump has claimed that Iran wants a deal “so badly,” while his envoy has sold the 15-point paper as a possible route to a settlement. The White House itself has been more cautious, saying nothing should be treated as official until formally announced. Still, the signal from Washington is that Pakistan is no longer outside the room. In one telling detail that would have been hard to imagine not long ago, Trump reshared Ishaq Dar’s message about Iran agreeing to let 20 more Pakistani-flagged ships pass through Hormuz on his social media platform, effectively amplifying Pakistani diplomatic messaging to his own political audience.
The Saudi angle is equally important because no durable regional arrangement is conceivable without Riyadh’s buy-in. The public readout from Islamabad stressed that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appreciated the Kingdom’s “remarkable restraint” during the war, while the Prime Minister’s Office said Pakistan and Saudi Arabia agreed to “continue to coordinate their positions closely in order to secure peace and stability in the region.” This carefully acknowledges Saudi weight, avoids any suggestion of divergence at a delicate moment, and places Pakistan where it wishes to be placed: close enough to Riyadh to be trusted, yet still able to remain in contact with Tehran.
There is another reason Islamabad’s role is being taken more seriously than many in the region would like to admit. The four-day India-Pakistan war last year, and the US-brokered ceasefire that followed, reminded Washington that Pakistan could handle escalation under pressure and still stay in the conversation. In policy circles, that line matters. States acquire diplomatic utility not only from what they say in calm weather, but from how they behave when the sky darkens.
This helps explain why Pakistan’s current effort is more structured than critics assume. Discussions in Islamabad were initially focused on proposals for reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, including ideas tied to Suez-style fee structures and even a possible consortium to manage flows. According to a Turkish source, ensuring safe passage for ships could serve as an important confidence-building measure.
The shipping angle is central because this war is no longer just about missiles and deterrence. Before the fighting, about one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas moved through Hormuz. That normal flow of roughly 130 ships a day has now dropped to six or fewer, under Iranian coordination, while Brent crude rose above $107 a barrel.
None of this means the path ahead is smooth. Pakistan is attempting high-wire diplomacy, with full knowledge that Israeli strikes on civilian and infrastructure targets, coupled with a larger American military buildup, could easily undercut confidence in Tehran and shrink the political space for compromise. Iran’s Abbas Araghchi has already argued that attacks on civilian sites contradict Washington’s talk of giving diplomacy a chance. Israel could play spoiler precisely when a fragile opening is being assembled.
And yet, for all the pressure, there is one notable absence in the current configuration: petty intrigue. There are no conspiracy-laden whispers from Islamabad being allowed to define the moment, no indulgence in side dramas when the main theatre is burning. The war between the United States, Israel and Iran now sits at the centre of every important discussion, and Pakistan has adjusted accordingly. Its diplomacy has been direct, its public language disciplined, and its foreign minister unusually visible. Dar has met his Turkish, Egyptian and Saudi counterparts separately, relayed positions between Washington and Tehran, and publicly framed the effort around one idea that is at once modest and ambitious: not a miracle, not an instant settlement, but an “early and permanent end.”
That may, in the end, be Pakistan’s real gain from this moment. Not that it can impose a settlement on adversaries still far apart, but that it has made itself relevant to the making of one. India’s familiar sniping is best understood in that light. New Delhi is absent from the current format not because of any slight theatrically inflicted upon it, but because this particular diplomatic exercise requires access on all sides, and Pakistan presently has more of it. In a region where influence is often measured in noise, Islamabad has acquired something quieter and more valuable: utility.