Pakistan, a country once isolated by Washington for harboring Osama bin Laden, is assuming a surprisingly prominent position in the multination effort to push the U.S. and Iran toward the negotiating table.
Islamabad has offered to host potential peace talks, a proposal President Trump amplified this week on his Truth Social platform. The country’s officials helped deliver America’s 15-point peace plan to Iran, according to Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy for the Middle East. The message went via a Pakistani facilitated back channel, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has said.
It is a remarkable return to the White House’s confidence for a country that Trump in his first term dismissed as a bad-faith actor that had given the U.S. nothing but “lies & deceit.”
Pakistan’s emergence as a possible peace broker is testament to how its powerful officials have cultivated Trump and entered into deals involving the president’s inner circle, cryptocurrency and critical minerals, propelling Pakistan back into America’s favor.
Political experts point to the involvement of Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, who earlier this year presided over the signing of a crypto deal between a Witkoff firm and the Pakistani government. Trump has described him as his favorite Pakistani field marshal.
Iran, which shares a border with Pakistan, has economic and diplomatic ties with Islamabad and regards it as a friendly nation. Tehran has agreed to allow 20 Pakistani ships across the Strait of Hormuz, which the Islamic Republic has effectively blocked to commercial shipping, according to Dar, who is also Pakistan’s foreign minister.
Although Iran has rejected the U.S. peace proposal and responded with its own five-point plan, Pakistan said over the weekend that an initial summit of mediating countries is set to take place in Islamabad this coming week in an effort to de-escalate the conflict.
Whether or not that leads to substantive peace talks, Pakistan has already executed a diplomatic coup in its favor.
“From Pakistan’s point of view, it’s a win-win. Whether there is a deal or there isn’t,” said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. “What Pakistan has accomplished is that the impression and image of isolation has been replaced by it being center stage.”
Pakistan has good reason to do everything it can to bring about an end to the conflict. After the U.S. and Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, deadly anti-American protests broke out in Pakistan, which like Iran has a large Shia Muslim population.
Further, in September, Islamabad signed a NATO-style mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia. “Playing the role of mediator is also a way of fending off any immediate Saudi pressure for entering the conflict on Saudi Arabia’s behalf,” said Haqqani.
But being a go-between carries risks, said Imran Ali, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Oman. “Pakistan has had to do a very difficult diplomatic dance between Iran and Saudi Arabia,” he added.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry and military didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
For years, during the Cold War and War on Terror, the U.S. counted on Pakistan as an ally. The Central Intelligence Agency worked closely with Pakistan’s army and intelligence services in its hunt for the al Qaeda militants responsible for Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including the group’s leader, bin Laden. When he was discovered living in a Pakistani town—where he was killed in a covert U.S. mission in 2011—Washington’s opinion of Islamabad collapsed.
The Biden administration as recently as 2024 alleged that Pakistan was seeking to develop a missile that could reach the U.S.
The reset in relations began early in Trump’s second term after the Pentagon delivered a message to Islamabad: Find and deliver the militant behind the 2021 Kabul airport bombings. Pakistan answered the call, and Trump praised it for doing so in an address to Congress last March.
Just weeks after that, Islamabad credited the U.S. for the cease-fire in a brief conflict with its nuclear-armed neighbor, India, something New Delhi disputes. Crucially, some say, Pakistan nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize he has long coveted.
“Pakistan gave Trump two early wins as he was just starting his second term in office,” said Maleeha Lodhi, who served twice as Islamabad’s ambassador to the U.S. “Pakistan kept repeatedly thanking him for defusing the crisis [with India].”
Pakistani officials also pursued contacts with people in the Trump administration and the presidential family, efforts that political experts say were steered by Munir, the army chief.
Pakistan has twice rolled out the red carpet for the Trump family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, which has earned the Trumps over $1 billion since its 2024 launch.
In January, Munir officiated at a meeting in Islamabad with World Liberty CEO Zach Witkoff, son of Steve Witkoff.
The younger Witkoff signed an agreement at that meeting with the Pakistani Finance Ministry to explore the country’s use of stablecoins, a dollar-backed variety of cryptocurrency that World Liberty issues—the company’s first such deal with a foreign state. Afterward, Munir and Witkoff shook hands for the cameras.
Zach Witkoff also met Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in April of last year, during a visit where he was feted like a visiting dignitary, with a fireworks display in his honor. The head of Pakistan’s newly created digital-assets regulator has served as an adviser to World Liberty.
Pakistan’s mediating role started as early as September, when it communicated messages between Iran and the U.S. on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, in an unsuccessful attempt to revive nuclear talks, according to an Iranian and an Arab official.
On Feb. 6, when the U.S.-Iran negotiations restarted in Muscat, Oman, Munir flew to Muscat and met with negotiators Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to discuss the talks at their hotel, according to the Arab official. He didn’t join the talks with the Iranians, the official said.
After nominating Trump for the peace prize for his “stellar statesmanship” in preventing a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, Islamabad was one of the first to sign up to Trump’s international Board of Peace. At the board’s inaugural meeting in Washington, Steve Witkoff announced a deal for the U.S. and Pakistan to jointly redevelop the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, owned by Pakistan’s loss-making airline.
During that meeting, Trump praised Munir, whom he previously hosted at the White House, as a “tough man, a tough—good fighter, right? Good—serious fighter.”
For all Pakistan’s maneuvers to get the U.S. and Iran talking, political experts say it is unlikely Islamabad wants to be directly involved in negotiations, which will be very complex. They say it would prefer to play the role of back channel facilitator, which Islamabad held in talks with the Taliban over the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
When foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt meet in Islamabad in the coming week, experts say the discussions could involve preparatory work for a U.S.-Iran meeting, as well addressing possible differences among the mediators over how to resolve the conflict.
Write to Tripti Lahiri at tripti.lahiri@wsj.com, Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com and Angus Berwick at angus.berwick@wsj.com