Pakistan has opened a new round of diplomatic outreach to Iran as efforts continue to prevent the conflict involving Tehran and Washington from moving further beyond the reach of mediation.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar had spoken with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, and invited him to visit Pakistan. Government sources also said National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq had extended a separate invitation to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator.
There has been no confirmed date for either visit. The invitations nevertheless underline Islamabad’s attempt to keep a political channel active at a time when previous attempts to secure a ceasefire have repeatedly broken down.
Pakistan has positioned itself as a mediator since the war began on 28 February, calling for restraint, negotiations and a diplomatic settlement. Its role became more prominent in April, when Islamabad hosted the first direct talks between the United States and Iran in decades, according to the source material.
Those talks later produced the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, signed in June by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump. Pakistani officials have continued to refer to the memorandum as the main diplomatic framework despite repeated failures to maintain the ceasefire it was intended to support.
The latest outreach comes amid conflicting public accounts of whether talks between Tehran and Washington are taking place. Trump accused Iranian leaders of duplicity in comments posted on Truth Social, saying they had sought meetings while publicly denying that discussions were under way. He also told reporters that Iran faced what he described as a final opportunity to agree to a deal.
Iran has rejected the suggestion that it is currently in talks with the United States. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the only ongoing discussions were technical exchanges with Oman concerning the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic maritime passage used by a significant share of global oil shipments in peacetime.
Baghaei also said Pakistan remained the mediator on issues involving Iran and the United States, while Qatar continued to be available to assist if required. That distinction points to a broader regional diplomatic pattern, with several countries engaging on separate but related elements of the crisis.
Oman’s role is focused on the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran and Oman are the two littoral states. The talks are understood to involve practical maritime issues, including shipping access and security arrangements. Washington has warned against any arrangement that would give Tehran effective control over the waterway, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling such a precedent dangerous.
Pakistan’s remit is different. Islamabad is not directly involved in the management of the strait and has instead sought to facilitate political engagement on the wider conflict. That includes ceasefire commitments, attacks, sanctions, the nuclear file and possible security guarantees.
The limits of Pakistan’s role have become more visible as ceasefire efforts have failed. An earlier truce collapsed within days, followed by a US naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports, according to the source material. The June memorandum also failed to prevent renewed exchanges of attacks and the reimposition of the blockade.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi has continued to describe the memorandum as the framework for peace. President Pezeshkian has also signalled that Tehran still sees value in the document, calling it central to Iran’s future external relations in a social media post.
Analysts cited by Al Jazeera offered differing assessments of whether the memorandum remains viable. Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Iran, described it as a foundational document rather than a failed initiative, arguing that Pakistan had acted sincerely as a facilitator.
Grace Wermenbol, a former US national security official and senior visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said repeated breakdowns reflected a deeper erosion of trust between the parties. Mehran Kamrava, a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, argued that the problem lay less with Pakistan’s mediation than with the absence of clear US objectives and an agreed end point.
Other analysts were more cautious about Islamabad’s capacity to influence outcomes. Seyed Mojtaba Jalalzadeh, a Tehran-based international relations analyst, said Pakistan’s role had been reduced from a mediator able to resolve the conflict to a facilitator with access to the relevant parties.
That access remains important because direct US-Iran channels are limited. But Pakistan cannot compel either side to observe commitments once they are made. Its diplomatic value depends on maintaining confidence in Islamabad’s role while avoiding promises it cannot deliver.
The wider regional environment has also shaped the mediation effort. Gulf states, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt all have reasons to prevent the conflict from spreading or disrupting trade routes. Rather than competing channels, some analysts see the different mediation tracks as a practical division of labour.
For Islamabad, the immediate challenge is to keep talks possible while public rhetoric hardens. Trump’s recent statements have increased pressure on Tehran, but they have also raised questions about whether Washington is pursuing diplomacy, escalation or both at once.
Pakistan’s invitation to senior Iranian officials is therefore a procedural step with wider significance. It does not resolve the dispute and does not guarantee renewed US-Iran engagement. But it keeps a diplomatic venue available at a time when mistrust, maritime tensions and repeated ceasefire failures have narrowed the space for negotiation.
