The latest round of talks between the USA and Iran, as a follow-up to an MoU between them, is being held in Doha, Qatar. The MoU, or the Islamabad Agreement, whatever you prefer to call it, had taken an intense round of diplomacy over two months to bring it into effect. What was initially conceived on April 11/12 in Islamabad as the framework for peace was signed in Paris, Tehran and Islamabad as the Memorandum of Understanding on 17 June, and formalised in Burgenstock by senior representatives of all nations on June 21. The Prime Minister of Pakistan was the primary host, while the Qatari PM was present as the co-host.

Much before April 11/12, when the ceasefire was announced, and till the delegations met in Burgenstock in the third week of June, the entire focus of the Pakistani top leadership had been to reconcile the unending elements of discord between the two warring sides to commit their ceasefire agreement to paper. The MoU was thus a vehicle to that end. It was also meant to create the space for talks on the more intractable issues of sanctions and nuclear disarmament. There was an unrestrained global cry to open the Straits to normal functioning. Pakistan delivered Hormuz as the first tangible dividend of the Agreement, other than bringing a conditional closure to the war. If the Chinese were anyway included in advising their principal ally, Pakistan, on the process, that would have been the most vehement Chinese demand of their partners to effect as the first order of business.

During this process of indirect mediation between the US and Iran, another aspirational partner emerged: Qatar. It was never one of the principal four that had got together to........

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