Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar addressed the National Assembly on Wednesday, unveiling Pakistan’s pivotal and confidential role in brokering a historic diplomatic agreement between the United States and Iran. This breakthrough helped ease a critical regional military crisis through discreet mediation efforts.
During the federal budget debate, Dar emphasized that Islamabad maintained absolute secrecy throughout six intense rounds of negotiations, successfully securing a preliminary bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) without any information leaks. He highlighted Pakistan as the only Muslim country to promptly condemn the Israeli strike on Iran, which positioned Islamabad to initiate a crucial backchannel de-escalation mission.
Dar stated, “Pakistan actively and effectively contributed to ending hostilities,” noting that both Washington and Tehran explicitly entrusted Pakistan as their mediator. The foreign minister credited Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir for leading the diplomatic efforts, engaging directly with top officials from the two adversarial nations.
He disclosed that at the height of the crisis, Pakistani officials conducted 152 diplomatic meetings with foreign ministers and officials worldwide to maintain communication among regional allies. Dar acknowledged the challenges faced, including retaliatory Iranian strikes on US military bases shortly after initial talks began. Pakistani mediators promptly contacted the Iranian foreign minister, expressing condolences and urging a halt to further military actions to allow diplomacy to proceed.
“Negotiations nearly collapsed several times, especially during complex US-Iran interactions,” Dar explained. “Nevertheless, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir persevered, applying continuous pressure to keep both parties engaged.” The backchannel diplomacy culminated in the landmark Islamabad MoU, which paved the way for the first direct high-level talks between Washington and Tehran in 47 years, held recently in Burgenstock, Switzerland.
Dar further revealed that US President Donald Trump formally endorsed the Islamabad MoU during the Group of Seven (G7) summit, launching a 60-day period of technical negotiations focused on regional de-escalation, nuclear issues, and sanctions relief. He underscored Pakistan’s strict adherence to diplomatic protocols, noting that Islamabad withheld sensitive documents even from close allies until the agreement was finalized.
Shifting to domestic matters, Dar expressed appreciation to provincial chief ministers for their financial grants to the federal government. He assured that these funds would be efficiently allocated to essential federal duties, particularly national defense and ongoing security operations.
