Pakistan has earned its moment in the sun, and for once, it is not borrowed light. The direct US-Iran negotiations now underway in Islamabad have moved past the polite choreography of opening statements into the grind of expert-level bargaining, with economic, military and legal committees joining the process to iron out the fine print. Talks are now focused on technical details, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif having met delegations separately before the sessions began.
That matters for a reason too many commentaries miss. Islamabad track had nearly buckled after Israeli strikes in Lebanon. Pakistan did not walk into a settled process. It stepped into one on the verge of breakdown and still kept both sides engaged long enough to move the negotiations forward.
The usual chorus of sceptics has repeatedly dismissed backchannel feelers and shuttle diplomacy as empty theatre. Yet here the two sides are, across the table, in a city that has often been treated as a spectator in great power contests rather than a convenor.
Even if the first round yields no grand settlement, those standing at the wheel have already dispelled the notion that they could not bring adversaries together.
There is no mystery about why Islamabad stepped in. When elephants fight, the grass suffers, and Pakistan’s economy is fragile grass. The Strait of Hormuz remains central to the talks, and Iranian demands over frozen funds were linked by Iranian sources to safe passage through the strait. Around a fifth of the world’s traded oil usually passes through Hormuz on more than 100 ships a day, with only 12 recorded transits since the ceasefire, which is the sort of disruption that can rattle energy prices in the blink of an eye.
It goes without saying that the officials do not expect a dramatic breakthrough from the first round because the disputes are too broad, spanning sanctions relief, frozen assets, nuclear restrictions, military questions and the security of maritime passage.
At the end of the day, the achievement is not that Islamabad has produced a miracle by nightfall. The achievement is that it has moved the conflict from a battlefield logic to a negotiating logic, and done so in conditions so brittle that one more exchange in Lebanon or one more quarrel over assets could have sent the whole process back into the ditch.
There is, however, a deeper shift that deserves attention. For once, Pakistan’s civilian leadership, military establishment and diplomatic corps appear to be reading from the same page. That alignment, rare as it is, should not be squandered. We should now resist the temptation to blow our own trumpet, one that has ruined many genuine gains in this country. The wiser course is to bank the credibility, protect the process and learn the larger lesson. *