Pakistan PM Shuttles Gulf States to Broker US-Iran Talks

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey to build diplomatic support for US-Iran talks, as a ceasefire between the two countries holds through next week. The mission comes against a tense backdrop: the United States has ordered a naval blockade of Iran, a pressure measure that significantly raises the cost of any diplomatic failure. Pakistan is positioning itself as a back-channel facilitator, leveraging its ties with Gulf states and Ankara to sustain momentum toward negotiations before the ceasefire window closes. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have both served as intermediary actors in prior US-Iran diplomatic episodes, while Turkey maintains independent channels with Tehran. The immediate watch is whether Sharif's shuttle diplomacy produces a framework acceptable to Washington and Tehran before the ceasefire expires. A collapse would leave the naval blockade as the dominant instrument of US policy, narrowing the space for negotiated de-escalation and raising spillover risk across regional energy corridors.