Pakistan has emerged as an important diplomatic channel between Iran and the United States. Saima Afzal explains why Islamabad’s relationships with Iran, Washington and the Gulf often seen as a difficult balancing act have instead become a source of diplomatic leverage
Pakistan has emerged as an important channel between Washington and Tehran because it combines three qualities that matter in mediation: access to competing actors, acceptability across rival camps, and a direct national stake in preventing escalation.
Pakistan is hardly a neutral observer of Middle Eastern politics. It shares a long border with Iran, has deep economic and security relationships with Gulf Arab states, and maintains important ties with Washington. Yet these overlapping relationships may be precisely what gives Islamabad diplomatic value.
In mediation, neutrality and credibility are not necessarily the same thing. A useful mediator does not have to stand equally far from every party. It needs access to competing actors, enough trust to keep them engaged, and sufficient interest in an agreement to sustain diplomacy when negotiations become difficult.
Pakistan’s role in the June 2026 Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding showed that these relationships could be turned into a framework for negotiation. The agreement did not deliver lasting peace, and renewed hostilities exposed the depth of US-Iranian mistrust. But they also showed the limits of Pakistan’s role: Islamabad cannot impose a settlement, but it can help create political space in which one becomes possible.
The Middle East is not short of mediators. Oman and Qatar, in particular, have established diplomatic channels with both Washington and Tehran. Pakistan brings a different set of advantages.
Some Gulf states have become directly exposed to the security consequences of US-Iran confrontation. The presence of American military facilities and the possibility of Iranian retaliation make it difficult for them to remain outside the conflict’s strategic calculations.
European governments face a different constraint. France, Germany and the United Kingdom played central roles in the 2015 nuclear agreement, but their inability to preserve its promised economic benefits after the US withdrawal in 2018 made it harder for them to exercise leverage in Tehran.
As a mediator, Pakistan has the advantage of a direct border with Iran, close economic and security relationships with Gulf Arab states, and continuing political access to Washington
Pakistan occupies a different space. It combines a direct border with Iran with close economic and security relationships with Gulf Arab states and continuing political access to Washington. Its diplomatic value comes from remaining sufficiently acceptable to actors who increasingly struggle to communicate directly with one another.
Pakistan also has powerful reasons to prevent the conflict from escalating.
Start with geography. Pakistan and Iran share a 909km border. Serious instability inside Iran could quickly become a Pakistani security problem through weakened border controls, militancy, smuggling or population movements. Islamabad has little interest in another prolonged crisis along its western frontier.
Pakistan has many reasons to prevent the conflict from escalating. Serious instability inside Iran could become a Pakistani security problem through weakened border controls or smuggling
Then there is the Gulf. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries account for more than half of Pakistan’s workers’ remittances. Millions of Pakistanis live and work across the region, while Gulf states remain important sources of energy, investment, and economic support.
Maritime security matters too. Before the current conflict, roughly one-fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption passed through the Strait of Hormuz. For an energy-importing country such as Pakistan, disruption around Hormuz or insecurity near Bab el-Mandeb means higher energy, shipping and insurance costs.
These vulnerabilities give Pakistan a direct stake in successful mediation. Islamabad is not offering diplomatic good offices from a safe distance. It would bear substantial economic and security costs if diplomacy failed.
Pakistan’s Middle Eastern relationships are often seen as a balancing problem. For mediation, however, that constraint can become an advantage.
Pakistan cannot afford a rupture with neighbouring Iran, but neither can it distance itself from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf partners. Maintaining relationships across this divide gives Islamabad channels that become particularly valuable when communication between adversaries deteriorates.
There is a domestic interest too. Islamabad has strong reasons to prevent geopolitical rivalry in the Middle East from acquiring a sectarian dimension inside Pakistan. Regional confrontation can create political and communal spillovers, making de-escalation an internal security concern as well as a foreign-policy objective.
A temporary pause in fighting is therefore not enough. A ceasefire can reduce immediate military risks, but it cannot settle disputes over Iran’s nuclear programme, sanctions, maritime security or regional deterrence.
Pakistan has more to gain from a durable political process than from an interlude before another confrontation.
The Islamabad MoU demonstrated both the possibilities and the limits of Pakistani mediation. Its implementation faltered, and Washington and Tehran subsequently accused each other of failing to honour commitments. Any future agreement will require clearer sequencing, stronger implementation mechanisms and greater confidence that concessions by one side will be matched by the other.
Any future agreement will require stronger implementation mechanisms and greater confidence that concessions by one side will be matched by the other
Yet an agreement does not become irrelevant simply because it fails to end a conflict. It can leave behind diplomatic channels, procedures and points on which some agreement was possible. These can become useful when both sides decide the costs of escalation have grown too high.
This is where Pakistan may continue to matter. Its contribution is not the ability to dictate the terms of peace. It is the ability to communicate across the political divides that keep the conflict alive.
Pakistan’s diplomatic significance therefore rests not on perfect neutrality, but on a rarer combination: access to competing actors, acceptability across political divides, and a substantial national interest in preventing diplomacy from failing.
The lesson extends beyond Pakistan. In contemporary conflicts, the most useful mediator may not be the state standing furthest from the confrontation. It may be the one connected to enough of its protagonists and sufficiently exposed to the consequences — to keep them talking.
Pakistan cannot impose peace on Washington or Tehran. But mediation is not always about possessing enough power to impose an outcome. Sometimes it is about remaining connected when others can no longer talk. If Washington and Tehran again decide that escalation costs more than compromise, that may prove to be Pakistan’s most important diplomatic asset.
