Pakistan’s Open Line

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was in Baghdad for the 52nd session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Council of Foreign Ministers when he took time for a phone call with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. The two men discussed bilateral issues and diplomatic efforts to ease tensions in West Asia, Tasnim News Agency reported. That evening Araqchi held a similar call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

Baghdad was crowded that weekend. Fifty-three of the OIC’s 57 members had confirmed they would attend, which meant Araqchi had no shortage of colleagues within walking distance. He still gave preference to Islamabad. That choice says something about where Tehran believes useful diplomacy happens.

The reason is recent history. When the US-Iran war began Feb. 28 with joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, many capitals picked a side or kept quiet. Pakistan condemned attacks by all parties and went towards mediation. On April 8, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran after Pakistani mediation. Two days later Islamabad hosted the first round of talks. South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman called the episode “one of its biggest diplomatic wins in years”.

Geography explains part of the access. Pakistan shares a 900-kilometer border with Iran and is home to the world’s second-largest Shia population. Asif Durrani, a former Pakistani ambassador to Tehran, said Pakistan is the only country in the region with good relations with both Washington and Tehran. President Donald Trump has said Pakistan understands Iran better than most.

None of this made the work easy. In July, Trump declared the Islamabad memorandum of understanding over, and strikes between the U.S. and Iran resumed. The next day Dar met the Saudi ambassador in Islamabad, who praised Pakistan’s mediation even as the deal wobbled. Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said on July 16 that Pakistan had not stepped back from its role and that setbacks would be temporary. A mediator who leaves after the first collapse was never going to be trusted by either side. Pakistan stayed.

Staying has a price. Pakistan is working through an energy shortage tied to the conflict, and a separate terrorism issue with Afghanistan, all while shuttling between adversaries. Few mediators carry that much weight at home. Yet, even those carrying weight, do not engage in mediation like Pakistan did.

Skeptics argue that a mediator without military leverage over the parties achieves little. The record from April argues otherwise. Pakistan’s leverage is trust, and neither a sanction nor an airstrike can manufacture it. Both Tehran and Washington sent delegations to Islamabad because each believed its message would arrive intact. That belief took decades of steady behavior to build, and Pakistan did not spend it carelessly.

The event’s second call, with Abdelatty, matters too. Cairo has its own stake in regional calm, and its foreign minister is working the same problem from another angle. Pakistan does not want a monopoly on diplomacy. It needs partners who pick up when Araqchi dials, and the OIC meeting in Baghdad suggests the circle is widening.

A phone call will not end a war. It keeps a channel open, and channels are how ceasefires get written. Pakistan built one in April and has kept it staffed through a bad summer. The countries gathered in Baghdad, and the powers watching from further away, should use it while it works.