\u2022 Insiders say Washington asked Pakistan to host negotiations; groundwork laid in weeks of \u2018hectic diplomacy\u2019
\n\u2022 Witkoff expected to lead engagement; no indication yet of who Iran may send
\n\u2022 Trump claims engagement on \u201815 points\u2019
\n\u2022 Tehran implies existence of backchannel; spox says messages from US \u2018received and responded to\u2019
\n\u2022 Qatar, Turkiye support swift efforts to end war
\n\u2022 German president calls US-Israeli war on Iran \u2018violation of international law\u2019<\/p>\n
ISLAMABAD: A day after a proposal was floated to hold Iran-US talks in the nation\u2019s capital, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formally pitched Islamabad as a potential venue for negotiations between Iranian and US officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cSubject to concurrence by the US and Iran, Pakistan stands ready and honoured to be the host to facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks for a comprehensive settlement of the ongoing conflict,\u201d he wrote on X, tagging US President Donald Trump, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.<\/p>\n
The move followed reports that Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt had talked the US out of attacking Iranian energy infrastructure \u2014 a move that many fear would mark a dangerous escalation in the already-deadly conflict raging in West Asia.<\/p>\n
While there was no official word on whether the offer was Pakistan\u2019s own initiative, sources privy to discussions said that the request that Islamabad host talks between the two warring sides had actually come from Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cDidn\u2019t you see that who re-tweeted the PM\u2019s message,\u201d a source privy to developments told Dawn when asked where the proposal originated from.<\/p>\n
This was a reference to President Donald Trump, who shared PM Shehbaz\u2019s tweet on his own Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n
Pakistan has not made the offer \u2018just for fun\u2019, the insider said, adding that there was a deeper significance behind the move.<\/p>\n
When asked why Pakistan was chosen, the source said that the offer did not come about in a day or two, but was deliberated on in a series of meetings and backchannel efforts aimed at de-escalating the situation in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar was in constant contact with Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi and talked to him at least five times in recent days,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
Similarly, PM Shehbaz has spoken to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian twice in a couple of days, and their last conversation on Monday was said to have lasted over an hour.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the top military brass engaged Washington, the source said, referring to reports that Field Marshal Asim Munir had spoken to President Trump.<\/p>\n
In addition, civil and military leaders also met Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and his Defence Minister Faisal bin Farhan during a recent trip to Saudi Arabia, the insider said, painting all of these individual occurrences as being part of the chain of events that led up to the offer of Islamabad as a potential venue for de-escalation measures.<\/p>\n
Another aide to the PM cited media reports, which claimed that Trump\u2019s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff had traveled to Pakistan. \u201cThere is, however, so far no sign of any meaningful Iranian figure joining him there,\u201d the aide told Dawn.<\/p>\n
One source scoffed at the general feeling of \u2018surprise\u2019 over Pakistan playing a central role in organising talks between the warring sides, saying that it reflected how the country\u2019s diplomatic potential was always underestimated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2022 Insiders say Washington asked Pakistan to host negotiations; groundwork laid in weeks of \u2018hectic diplomacy\u2019 \u2022 Witkoff expected to lead engagement; no indication yet of who Iran may send \u2022 Trump claims engagement on \u201815 points\u2019 \u2022 Tehran implies existence of backchannel; spox says messages from US \u2018received and responded to\u2019 \u2022 Qatar, Turkiye […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17082,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions\/17082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}