Islamabad, Pakistan – In the middle of 1971, at the height of the Cold War, a Pakistani government plane carrying US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger flew overnight from Islamabad to Beijing. The trip was secret, the facilitator was Pakistan, and the geopolitical consequences were generational.More than 50 years later, Pakistan is once again carrying messages. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed on March 25 that Islamabad is relaying a US 15-point ceasefire proposal to Tehran, with Turkiye and Egypt providing additional diplomatic support, as the US-Israeli war against Iran stretches into its second month.On Thursday, chief US negotiator Steve Witkoff also confirmed that Pakistan was transferring messages between Washington and Tehran. Hours later, President Donald Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, a 10-day pause on threatened strikes against Iranian power plants, citing, in his words, a request from the Iranian government.Iran has so far denied that direct negotiations are taking place, but Trump’s latest pause means that his initial threat to attack Iran’s power plants, delivered last weekend, has now been deferred twice, as Pakistan plays the part of a key diplomatic facilitator.The role is not new. Pakistan brokered the secret US-China backchannel in 1971 and was a key interlocutor in the Geneva Accords that helped e …
