ISLAMABAD: Pakistan calls for vigilance against any attempts to undermine the ongoing United States-Iran peace process, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Sunday, following his telephonic conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The development came shortly after US Vice President JD Vance said there was an opportunity to “turn over a new leaf” with Iran as he met Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at a Swiss mountainside resort near Lake Lucerne to follow up on an interim deal to end their war.
Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar were also in the room for the direct engagement that, according to Iranian state media, lasted about 80 minutes. The US and Iranian negotiating teams also held separate private talks with Pakistani and Qatari officials.
Pakistan PM Sharif, who is part of the meetings in Switzerland, held a telephone conversation with Crown Prince Mohammed and thanked him for Saudi Arabia’s steadfast support for Pakistan’s peace efforts to resolve the conflict between the US and Iran, which began in late Feb.
“We agreed that the next phase of negotiations must continue to be guided by a firm commitment to dialogue, diplomacy, and vigilance against any attempt to undermine the peace process,” Sharif said on X.
The talks in the Qatari-owned mountaintop resort of Buergenstock in Switzerland were the first to be held under the terms of a memorandum of understanding agreed a week ago. It calls for the strait to be reopened and a halt to all hostilities, including in Lebanon, which US ally Israel invaded in March.
But despite the announcement of a new ceasefire in Lebanon on Friday, there has been scant sign of an end to fighting there.
Iran said on Saturday that as a result, it had again shut the strait, whose closure for nearly four months caused the biggest disruption of global energy supplies in history.
US officials disputed that the strait was closed, but commercially available shipping data showed an immediate impact.
As the meetings were happening in Buergenstock, US President Donald Trump threatened in an online post to strike Iran if it did not “immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” making reference to Hezbollah.
Neither Israel nor Hezbollah is a signatory to the deal between the US and Iran, further complicating the matters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep his forces in southern Lebanon until any threat to Israel is eliminated. Hezbollah has refused to halt its attacks unless Israel commits to withdrawing from Lebanon.
With input from wire services.
