Islamabad looking to breathe new life into mediation push

Pakistan is working to revive its mediation between Iran and the United States, Dawn reports. On Tuesday, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran to follow up on the stalled Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding reached in June. While Oman has taken the lead in separate negotiations over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Bloomberg the two countries are now close to some sort of an arrangement. Iran maintains that the Islamabad MoU is the only legitimate framework for resolving the broader dispute and wants concrete evidence of American willingness to comply before moving forward. The Strait has remained locked in a "no war, no peace" situation since the deal collapsed, making Pakistan's mediation push potentially pivotal.

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