As Iranian missiles strike Türkiye for the fourth time and a new regional security order stirs quietly in Riyadh, Pakistan is threading an almost impossible needle, holding Washington's hand while standing beside Tehran's neighbour. The next 72 hours may determine whether diplomacy survives the war.

The room in Islamabad on Sunday contained four foreign ministers, a war now in its 30th day, and a question no one in the room seemed quite willing to ask aloud: Is there a way out of this now, or has the window already closed?

The foreign ministers, Pakistan's Ishaq Dar, Türkiye's Hakan Fidan, Saudi Arabia's Faisal bin Farhan, and Egypt's Badr Abdelatty, had assembled in the Pakistani capital for a meeting described in official language as a coordination meeting. In reality, they were seeking to build the last available exit strategy before a decision is made by the United States on whether to send ground troops into Iran.

That Islamabad has emerged as the centre of this effort is, to say the least, surprising. Pakistan is not a great power. It is a country struggling to cope with an energy crisis of its own, guarding a porous 900-kilometre border with Iran, hosting the world's second-largest Shia population, and battling the Taliban in its western territories. It has a defence treaty with Saudi Arabia, which commits it to consider an attack on Riyadh an attack on itself, which Iran has already done. And yet, in some inexplicable manner, it is Pakistan that both Washington and Tehran claim to trust.

"Pakistan is very happy that both Iran and the US have expressed their confidence in Pakistan to facilitate the talks", - Ishaq Dar, Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

Islamabad acted as a go-between between Washington and Tehran in the early days of the conflict, an activity that US special envoy Steve Witkoff admitted publicly. Then the go-betweens started to make proposals. Pakistan conveyed a 15-point US ceasefire plan to Tehran, which the Iranians examined and then rejected, presenting alternatives of their own. In a small but telling move, the Iranians agreed to allow 20 Pakistan-flagged ships, two daily, to pass through the strait. It........

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