How Pakistan mediated a US-Iran agreement after more than 100 days of war
PM Shehbaz Sharif praises army chief and his ministers for their efforts in securing a tentative deal, likely to be finalised in Geneva later this
PM Shehbaz Sharif praises army chief and his ministers for their efforts in securing a tentative deal, likely to be finalised in Geneva later this week. Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says there were moments in the final stretch of negotiations between the United States and Iran when the talks appeared close to collapse. Each time, he told the Assembly on Monday, it was Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful military chief, who kept the deliberations alive. “Throughout this period, he was awake all day and night,” Sharif told lawmakers, adding that Munir had “sacrificed day and night to extinguish the flames of war”. There were many moments, he said, when “it felt like the negotiations would come to a halt” but the army chief did not give up. “If this journey had not continued,” Sharif said, “the dream of peace would have been shattered.” The acknowledgement, unusually specific for a process conducted almost entirely out of public view, offered the clearest glimpse yet into how Pakistan pulled off what many had considered an improbable task: brokering a deal to end more than three months of a war that has killed thousands of people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, and disrupted global energy markets. Sharif also praised Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and his team and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi for their “tireless efforts” while paying tribute to the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and China for their roles in the mediation. Pakistan’s military and its Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Information and Broadcasting did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for details of the US-Iran agreement. ‘Extremely difficult circumstances’ The agreement, announced early on Monday when Sharif broke the news on X, calls for an immediate and permanent end to military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.
US President Donald Trump confirmed the deal shortly afterwards on his Truth Social platform. “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” he wrote. A signing ceremony hosted by Pakistan is scheduled for Friday in Geneva. Under the 14-point memorandum of understanding, according to Iran’s Mehr News Agency, the US has committed to lifting its naval blockade of Iran within 30 days and withdrawing its forces deployed near Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, which has in effect been shut by Iran since the war began on February 28, is to reopen for normal transit under the agreement. Iran’s frozen assets, estimated at $24bn, are also likely to be released in phases over the ensuing 60 days of further negotiations, during which both sides are expected to address the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme. Discussions on Iran’s missile programme and its support for armed groups have been removed from the immediate agenda, according to the Iranian news agency. The negotiations were conducted under Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after the elder Khamenei was killed on February 28, the first day of the US-Israel war on Iran. Sharif on Monday specifically named the supreme leader among the leaders who had demonstrated “immense wisdom, prudence and patience under extremely difficult circumstances” during the negotiations. ‘Never-give-up approach’ Pakistan’s path to the announcement was neither linear nor, by most accounts, straightforward. A Pakistan-brokered ceasefire began on April 8 after Munir made a flurry of calls to US officials in the hours before a Trump deadline to strike Iran expired, and the ceasefire held, but only narrowly. Trump subsequently extended it indefinitely upon the “personal request” of Munir and Sharif, according to Pakistani officials.
The BriefWire