Pakistan and Qatar Urge Restraint Amid US-Iran Military Escalation

Hostilities between the United States and Iran escalated in July 2026 after Donald Trump declared that a previous ceasefire was over, leading to U.S. military strikes on Iran's southern coastal and eastern provinces, including Bushehr and Bandar Abbas. Iran responded by targeting U.S. military infrastructure in Bahrain, Kuwait, and other Gulf states.

In response to the crisis, Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held a series of telephone conversations on July 10 and 11 with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Sharif urged all parties to exercise restraint and return to the framework of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a peace agreement signed by the U.S. and Iran on June 18 to resolve nuclear and regional disputes through diplomacy.

Despite these diplomatic efforts and previous technical-level talks in Switzerland, indirect negotiations in Qatar recently ended without progress. Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, and the government of Saudi Arabia have joined the call for maximum restraint to prevent further destabilization of the region. During the diplomatic outreach, President Pezeshkian reaffirmed Iran's commitment to peace and thanked Pakistani officials, including Field Marshal Asim Munir and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, for attending the funeral of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.