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Saudi Arabia said a Pakistani military force, including fighter and support aircraft, has arrived at King Abdulaziz Air Base under a bilateral defence pact, a deployment that underscores expanding security coordination between the two countries.
With JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner now in Islamabad, Pakistan has become the venue for a diplomatic push that could decide whether a fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire survives or collapses.
While New Delhi continues to sell Pakistan internally as a terrorist state, Islamabad is increasingly positioning itself as a mediator, a bridge-builder and a country whose real strategic mission is peace.
Seven foreign leaders phoned Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif within 24 hours, publicly praising Pakistan’s role in securing the U.S.-Iran ceasefire and signalling a rare burst of direct diplomatic recognition for Islamabad.
Senior Indian Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said India should welcome, not resent, Pakistan’s role in helping secure a US–Iran ceasefire, arguing that peace in the region is not a zero-sum outcome.
Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by U.S.-based advocacy group Sikhs for Justice, crediting him with containing escalation during the recent U.S.-Iran crisis.
Pakistan’s role in securing the US-Iran ceasefire has opened a narrow but important window for peace, projecting Islamabad as a credible mediator. Yet the ceasefire is only a pause, and Pakistan’s test now lies in turning this diplomatic breakthrough into lasting regional, domestic, and economic gains.
India’s Congress has welcomed the West Asia ceasefire but says BJP blunders weakened New Delhi and opened diplomatic space for Pakistan to emerge as a mediator. The statement is a rare public sign that Pakistan’s regional role is now being debated inside India itself.
Trump says he will pause strikes on Iran for two weeks after talks with Shehbaz Sharif and Asim Munir, placing Pakistan at the heart of a high-stakes diplomatic push over the Strait of Hormuz and a possible wider peace deal.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has urged Donald Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks, called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and backed a temporary ceasefire to give diplomacy a real chance in the Middle East.
President Trump has said that Iranian civilisation “will die tonight” if Iran did not agree to the terms of a peace deal brokered by Pakistan before his deadline expired.
An Iranian strike tied to the Jubail petrochemical complex has sharpened fears of a wider regional rupture, deepened pressure on Saudi Arabia to respond, and cast fresh doubt over a fragile diplomatic track in which Pakistan has emerged as a key intermediary.
At a moment when Asia has been pulled towards confrontation and uncertainty, Ishaq Dar has helped place Pakistan at the centre of the diplomatic effort for peace. In the past month, his steady, coalition-building approach has turned Islamabad into a credible channel for dialogue, resulting in the Islamabad Accords.
Army Chief of Staff General Randy George has stepped down after being asked to take early retirement, extending a wider Pentagon leadership shake-up.
Just before Donald Trump was due to address the nation on the Middle East conflict, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian published an open letter to Americans, arguing that Tehran is being falsely cast as a threat and warning that more attacks will bring only suffering, instability and lasting resentment.
The Guardian was entitled to publish Mahrang Baloch’s testimony. But readers should read it for what it is: a partisan account, sharply written and emotionally potent, not a settled version of events.
Pakistan says the United States and Iran have expressed confidence in its role as a potential facilitator for talks, with Islamabad saying it would be honoured to host negotiations in the coming days.
Pakistan is preparing to host the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt for bilateral meetings and a four-country diplomatic session in Islamabad that is expected to conclude with a joint communiqué and possibly a meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Pakistan is no longer just reacting to events. It is increasingly being seen as a country around which events may be organised. Islamabad is emerging as a possible venue, Pakistani channels as useful, and names such as Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and JD Vance suggest that the diplomatic centre of gravity may, however tentatively, be shifting toward Pakistan.
Pakistan is quietly but actively positioning itself as a possible mediator in the US-Iran crisis, with its military and political leadership engaging Washington, Tehran and Gulf capitals in an effort to prevent the conflict from widening and to bring diplomacy back to the table.
Joe Kent, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, has resigned with immediate effect, stating that he cannot support the US war in Iran, arguing that Tehran posed no imminent threat, and questioning the basis on which the conflict has been pursued.
Israel says a targeted strike killed Ali Larijani, one of Iran’s most senior security figures, but Tehran had not confirmed the claim at the time of reporting. If verified, it would mark one of the biggest direct blows yet to Iran’s leadership in the current conflict.
A broadcaster like the BBC must do more than relay claims; it must test them. When it gives one side’s language prominence while sidelining the other’s evidence and security case, it stops just reporting and starts shaping a narrative.
Pakistan has publicly condemned attacks on Iran and on Gulf states, while insisting that the region cannot be stabilised through force. Islamabad says the only serious path forward is restraint, de-escalation and talks.
Pakistan has moved to shut down the impression of informal peace talks with the Afghan Taliban, insisting that there will be no dialogue without concrete and verifiable action against cross-border militancy.
The Diplomat’s piece rests on Ajmal Sohail’s unverified claims, presenting a politically situated Afghan figure as a neutral expert while offering no credible independent evidence for its most serious allegations. It also fails the basic logic test: Pakistan’s all-weather partnership with China makes the claim that Islamabad is targeting Chinese interests extremely difficult to sustain.
Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei has been appointed Iran’s new supreme leader, formalising a wartime succession that keeps power within the late Ali Khamenei’s family and signals hardline continuity at the top of the Islamic Republic.
Pakistan’s Embassy in Kabul has rejected claims linking it to a visa black market in Afghanistan, saying no private agents or intermediaries are authorised to collect money from applicants.
A Riyadh meeting between Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prince Khalid bin Salman foregrounds Pakistan–Saudi security coordination as the Kingdom discusses steps to halt Iranian missile and drone activity within the Joint Strategic Defence Agreement framework.
Donald Trump has hardened his stance on Iran by declaring that no agreement is possible without “unconditional surrender”, while also saying the United States and its allies would help rebuild the country only after the emergence of what he called “great and acceptable” new leadership.
Saudi Arabia says its air defences intercepted three drones east of Al-Kharj, three cruise missiles outside the city and another drone near Al-Jouf as regional tensions intensify.
A claim by US Congressman Ryan Zinke that Taliban fighters in Pakistan are using American Humvees and M16s has revived Pakistan’s long-running warning about post-2021 weapons spillover, as Pakistani reporting cites CNN-linked serial checks and alleged recoveries of US-origin kit in KP and Balochistan.
A viral “Israel War Room” post is being cited as “official sources” to claim Pakistan is joining Israel, but Pakistan’s stance is deterrence and de-escalation aimed at stopping Gulf spillover; screenshots do not make alliances, decisions do.
Iran’s chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi was killed in strikes on Tehran, claims Israel’s military. The IDF also says it targeted additional senior security figures and commanders in the capital.
LEA sources say six people were killed and 20 injured after vandalism erupted during a protest outside the US Consulate in Karachi, with a high-level JIT formed to investigate.
Donald Trump confirms Khamenei is dead and vows continued strikes, urging Iranians to “take back” their country.
Israeli officials claim Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes on Tehran, a claim not confirmed by Iran, as retaliatory missile attacks ripple across Gulf states hosting US assets.
Pakistani security forces have taken control of the 32 sq km Ghudwana Enclave in the Zhob sector, security sources say, after alleged Afghan Taliban raids and unprovoked firing on Pakistani positions triggered a hard and effective response.
Afghan media and Afghan-linked accounts pushed a dramatic claim that a Pakistani fighter jet was shot down in Nangarhar and the pilot captured, but Pakistan flatly denied any loss as the supposed “proof” failed scrutiny and several posts driving the story were quietly deleted.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, in a message addressed to Sirajuddin Haqqani, recalled the anti-Soviet era by saying Pakistan stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the Haqqanis, hosted Afghan families as guests, and still carries millions of refugees on its soil.
