Madeleine Albright, a former U.S. secretary of state, once compared Pakistan to “an international migraine.”
These days, its leaders are on a mission to offer the world a pain reliever.
Pakistan is set to host delegations from the United States and Iran on Saturday for the first formal talks since their war began on Feb. 28, the latest diplomatic feat from an unlikely mediator. Pakistan helped broker the cease-fire announced on Tuesday, just ahead of a deadline set by President Trump, who had threatened to erase Iranian civilization.
In Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, the authorities have blocked roads with shipping containers and barbed wire and deployed thousands of security personnel ahead of the talks between the U.S. and Iranian delegations, led by Vice President JD Vance and the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Even hiking trails on the lush hills overlooking Islamabad have been closed to the public. To prepare for the talks, Pakistani officials declared Thursday and Friday public holidays.
They remain tight-lipped about the details though, including where and when the talks will take place and how long they will last, citing security concerns and the need to let Iranian and U.S. officials drive the negotiations.
The cease-fire was facilitated by Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and by its army chief, Syed Asim Munir, who has nurtured a close relationship with Mr. Trump. China, an ally of both Iran and Pakistan, also made a last-minute diplomatic push.
But the cease-fire remains shaky. Iran is keeping a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, despite Mr. Trump’s demand to reopen it. And even as Mr. Vance was on his way to Pakistan, Mr. Ghalibaf said conditions for negotiations had not been met yet, citing continued Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon that have killed more than 1,800 people since the war began, according to Lebanese authorities.
Mr. Sharif said on Tuesday that the two-week cease-fire extended to Lebanon. Mr. Vance and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later denied that.
Mr. Sharif and European leaders have urged Israel to stop its strikes in Lebanon, and Mr. Trump has said he had asked Mr. Netanyahu to scale back attacks on Lebanon.
“Pakistan enjoys trust on both sides and plays the role of a facilitator, a conciliator and a mediator,” said Inam Ul Haque, a retired Pakistani general. “But like many in this conflict, it is walking a very fine line.”
Pakistan’s role has drawn praise from leaders around the world, a remarkable turnaround for a country crippled with debt, at war with one neighbor, Afghanistan, and in constant tensions with another, India.
Pakistan has had one of South Asia’s most sluggish economic growth rates over the past few years, hovering just above 3 percent last year. It is slowly emerging from a 2022 crisis that brought it close to financial collapse. It was rescued by loans from China and Gulf countries.
Its allies and foes alike have often derided Pakistan as an unreliable partner. During the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, it played a double game, offering support to the United States while also sheltering the Taliban.
But its powerful army chief, Field Marshal Munir, has developed a warm personal relationship with Mr. Trump since last year. The two had also discussed Iran amid the 12-day war last June between Iran and Israel.
In recent weeks, Field Marshal Munir has been in regular touch with Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, according to Pakistani and White House officials. Mr. Sharif and his foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, have worked the phones with leaders of other countries, including Iran, with which Pakistan shares a long, restive border and decades of deep, if sometimes fraught, bonds.
But Pakistan does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. On Thursday, Israeli officials accused Pakistan of not being a neutral arbiter after its defense minister, Khawaja Asif, posted a statement on social media with antisemitic undertones. Mr. Asif has since deleted the post.
Pakistan has an urgent interest in ending the war. It normally imports 85 percent of its oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz. More than half of the $40 billion in annual remittances to Pakistan are from citizens working in the Gulf. And Iran’s attacks on Saudi Arabia have threatened to drag Pakistan into the conflict under a Saudi-Pakistani defense agreement, under which an attack on one country is considered an attack on the other.
“Pakistan sees the Middle East as the most important region in the world for its interests,” said Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, a think tank. “It might be more vulnerable to the war’s effects than any country in the region because of its dependence on the Middle East and geography.”
Pakistan’s immediate proximity to Iran has also left it exposed to the risk of violence in its border province of Balochistan, where security forces are already fighting lethal insurgencies.
The violence there has driven terrorism-related deaths in Pakistan to their highest point since 2013, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, a research group. It said Pakistan in 2025 suffered the largest number of casualties from terrorist incidents of any country in the world, with 1,139 people killed.
Islamabad, a city of about a million people, had lately been spared the effects of terrorism. But it suffered two attacks in recent months, including a February suicide bombing at a mosque that killed more than 30 worshipers and injured nearly 170 others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for it.
Officials are also worried about retaliatory violence from Afghanistan, where the Pakistani military has carried out dozens of airstrikes since late February. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of supporting a terrorist group that has carried out hundreds of attacks on Pakistani soil in recent years.
As Pakistan was brokering the Middle East cease-fire, some of its officials discreetly met with their Afghan counterparts for talks in China. Both sides said they would continue the talks and refrain from escalating the conflict, according to China.
Elian Peltier is The Times’s bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, based in Islamabad.
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