Iran reiterates offer to mediate Af-Pak conflict

Tehran: In an irony of sorts, Iran has reiterated an offer to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan to sit across the negotiating table and resolve the neighbours’ ongoing border clashes and occasional raids into each other’s territory.

Irony, because earlier Pakistan offered to help reconcile Iran and the United States; that effort began with considerable ambition, but the effective efforts later came from Qatar. The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, a provisional arrangement intended to end the war, served as an impressive diplomatic menu that failed to meet the diners’ taste.

Meanwhile, Pakistan itself has been slipping further into domestic chaos, its global ambitions marred by internal pressures. Economic distress, political dysfunction, military might dictating political and diplomatic processes, and running feuds with neighbours have all led to the slide.

For a long time, Islamabad has actively been trying to keep Washington happy, including its foray into recent peacemaking even as a war with Afghanistan was raging in its backyard. Similarly, it allied with the United States in launching a not‑so‑covert war in Afghanistan against Soviet invasion in the 1980s, which its own defence minister has since criticised.

Earlier, it joined the Washington‑led Baghdad Pact in the 1950s, which was intended to keep then-Soviet Russia from expanding. Later, Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan had claimed that Islamabad was losing faith in the pact due to its inability to help allies. The statement came after Pakistan’s Civil War within and its defeat by India in successive battles.

Islamabad has also tried to help the United States and China in diplomatic rapprochement. Through this, it is maintaining an “all-weather” relationship with Beijing even while pushing closer relations with the Islamic world.

This time, in its effort at mediation between Washington and Tehran, Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir initially hogged the limelight, visiting Tehran at least twice, getting kind words from US President Donald Trump. Then the centre of diplomatic gravity visibly shifted toward Qatar. Doha dispatched negotiators to Tehran, hosted senior Iranian figures and maintained close coordination with US officials.

It possessed several advantages, including established channels with both capitals, deep experience mediating between adversaries, and the financial and political stamina required to keep discussions alive after everyone else had declared them impossible.

However, Washington said Tehran’s conduct made the arrangement unsustainable, while Iran maintained that it had honored its commitments and was entitled to respond to US attacks. Pakistan’s real failure was an inability to convert its access into durable leverage. Neither Iran nor the US depended enough on Islamabad for it to impose restraint. While Pakistan could carry messages, Qatar was better positioned to negotiate.

Islamabad consequently stepped back, maintaining diplomatic discretion. There was no official withdrawal, nor announcement that mediation had been paused.

Now comes the twist where Iran is reiterating its proposal to help Pakistan and Afghanistan negotiate peace. Thus, Pakistan, having struggled to reconcile adversaries from two continents, may now receive mediation from one of them in its own conflict.

The Pakistan‑Afghanistan dispute is serious enough to threaten the region. Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban of sheltering or supporting the Tehreek‑e‑Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which allegedly carries out deadly attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul denies hosting such elements, arguing that Pakistan must address its internal security failures, and strongly objects to cross‑border military action.

Border closures and clashes around crossings have disrupted trade and divided communities whose daily lives do not fit wholly behind the Durand Line. There is also the enduring argument over the border itself. Pakistan treats the Durand Line, drawn by then British occupiers, as the settled international frontier, while successive Afghan powers have refused to recognise it, claiming that vast lands of Pashtun‑inhabited territory still lie across it.

Meanwhile, Iran has reasons to volunteer – sharing its border with both countries, hosting a large Afghan refugee population, worries about extremist groups including Islamic State Khorasan Province, and dependence on regional stability for trade and border security. Tehran also has recurring disputes with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mediation would allow Iran to cast itself not merely as a friendly neighbour, but as a regional power capable of providing it.

IANS