Regional Mediators Scramble To Salvage US-Iran Deal Amid Military Escalation
After Strikes And Trump’s ‘Deal Over’ Declaration, Mediators Move To Revive US-Iran Talks Published By, Last Updated: July 10, 2026, 09:59 IST Backchannel diplomacy has
After Strikes And Trump’s ‘Deal Over’ Declaration, Mediators Move To Revive US-Iran Talks Published By, Last Updated: July 10, 2026, 09:59 IST Backchannel diplomacy has intensified as regional powers seek to prevent a return to all-out war and revive stalled US-Iran nuclear talks. Rapid Read US Vice President JD Vance, along with Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, during a quadrilateral meeting at the Lake Lucerne Summit in Switzerland. (Reuters) Qatar, Pakistan and several other regional powers are pushing the United States and Iran to de-escalate tensions and return to negotiations over a nuclear agreement after US President Donald Trump declared the existing understanding and ceasefire “over". According to Axios, officials from Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia held multiple calls with American and Iranian officials on Wednesday in an effort to prevent the latest military escalation from spiralling into a wider conflict. The renewed mediation comes after two days of US-Iran exchanges that included Iranian attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and two rounds of American strikes on Iranian military targets.
Although Trump announced on Wednesday that the US-Iran memorandum of understanding and the ceasefire were “over", Axios reported that his administration remained focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and avoiding a return to an all-out war with Iran. Mediators Seek To Revive Nuclear Talks The regional mediators believe the US and Iran had made progress towards a nuclear agreement during earlier rounds of negotiations and are seeking to prevent the entire diplomatic process from collapsing, according to the report. “There are extensive diplomatic efforts to first agree with both sides on de-escalation and then set a date for another round of negotiations between the technical teams," a regional source involved in the mediation told Axios. A source from one of the mediating countries also claimed that the recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz may have been initiated by elements within the Iranian establishment that oppose the understanding with Washington and want to undermine it. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, meanwhile, told Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, that the US strikes and Trump’s rhetoric amounted to violations of the memorandum of understanding, according to a statement posted on Araghchi’s Telegram channel.
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