Iran's Refusal to Meet US Delegation Exposes Pakistan's Diplomatic Tightrope

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's refusal to meet a US delegation in Pakistan has once again exposed Islamabad's risky diplomatic tightrope walk between global powers. The US delegation, led by Steve Witcoff and Jared Kushner, was scheduled to travel to Pakistan for the second round of 'Islamabad talks' on April 25, but Araghchi refused to meet them, forcing President Donald Trump to cancel the visit.

The article suggests Pakistan's army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir had assured the US of persuading Iran for a deal favouring the US. To initiate the process, Pakistan held a meeting on March 30 of foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia — all US allies — before the first round of 'Islamabad talks' for sensing their response to a possible deal between the US and Iran.

China was not pleased at the diplomatic and strategic overreach by Pakistan without consulting it. Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar was summoned to Beijing and made to sign a five-point declaration on April 1, giving primacy to the UN charter — a formulation that China repeated in the UN Security Council on April 7 while voting against a resolution moved by Bahrain.

The behaviour of the US delegation in the first round of talks in Islamabad (April 11-12), where they took continuous dictates from Washington and advice from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before walking away, didn't go down well with the Iranians. The very next day, the US announced a blockade — described as an act of war — of Iranian ports in Strait of Hormuz.

Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to drum up support for the deal and once again conveniently ignored China. What transpired at the meetings that Asim Munir had in Iran before the scheduled second round of dialogue is not known, but the article suggests he must have told Iranians to pamper the ego of the US President by allowing him to declare a victory rather than prolonging the conflict.

At the same time, Iran can't antagonise Pakistan with whom it shares a long 900-km border. As Iran focuses on the sea where the US has amassed troops, it will have to ensure that its land border with Pakistan is not exploited by the US for ground invasion.

Iran would also be alarmed after Pakistan dispatched 13,000 armed military personnel along with some aircraft and pilots to Saudi Arabia, a US ally in the region. The troops were sent after Saudi Arabia promised to park $3 billion in Pakistani banks.

That is why Abbas Araghchi travelled to Pakistan on April 25 to explain why Iran refused to attend the second round of 'Islamabad talks'. The reality, according to the article, is that Iran has become a target of simmering geo-strategic tension between the US and China over capturing world resources and opening markets for their products.

The article argues that enrichment of uranium, production of ballistic missiles and security of Israel are only smoke screens created by the US to hide the real issue of blocking supply of Iranian sanctioned oil to China that the latter uses for fuelling its economy. For ensuring the same, the US required the complete surrender of Iran.

But the US-Israeli plan backfired. Along with Iran, the US and Israel suffered huge losses in the conflict, which was unexpected. President Trump and Israel's Netanyahu have not been able to force the surrender of Iran despite launching devastating bombing for weeks, targeted annihilation of Iranian leadership and even threats to kill an entire civilisation.

Hence, Trump badly needs a fig leaf of victory that he could project internationally to maintain the US's continued military and economic domination and shore up his sagging support domestically. The most suitable country to bail out the US is obviously Pakistan — a country always in need of economic support from the US in terms of tariffs and regular bailouts from the IMF.

But this risky double game may dent Islamabad's relations with China, as also cause international humiliation.