PM Shehbaz invites US, Iranian delegations to Islamabad on April 10 for peace talks
\n islamabad
\nPrime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said that Islamabad would host delegations from the United States and Iran later this week following their ceasefire announcement.
\n\u201cI… extend deepest gratitude to the leadership of both the countries and invite their delegations to Islamabad on Friday, 10th April 2026, to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes,\u201d he said in a post on X.
\nPakistan, which has forged a close relationship with US President Donald Trump and is sensitive to developments in neighbouring Iran, has emerged as a channel for messaging between Tehran and Washington in recent weeks.
\n\u201cWe earnestly hope, that the \u2018Islamabad Talks\u2019 succeed in achieving sustainable peace and wish to share more good news in coming days,\u201d the prime minister said. Both Tehran and Washington said they had agreed to a two-week ceasefire barely an hour before Trump\u2019s deadline to obliterate Iran was set to expire.
\nSeparately, PM Shehbaz said that Iran\u2019s President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed Tehran\u2019s participation in the \u201cIslamabad talks\u201d to finalise a settlement to their conflict. The confirmation came during a 45-minute phone call between PM Shehbaz and Pezeshkian, he wrote in a post on X.
\nThe war began when Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran that assassinated its supreme leader on February 28, sparking retaliatory attacks from Tehran on Gulf nations and Israel.
\nLebanon has also been drawn into the conflict after Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel, which has since carried out strikes, including on the capital, and launched a ground operation in the south of the country.
\nPM Shehbaz said the ceasefire applied \u201ceverywhere\u201d including Lebanon, though Israel later said it would not stop its aerial and ground operations there against Hezbollah.
\nThe temporary ceasefire came after a down-to-the-wire bid by Pakistan and other mediators to avert Trump\u2019s threat to destroy all power plants and bridges across Iran, a move that legal experts said could constitute a war crime.
\nTurkiye and Egypt had also been helping mediate in recent days. China helped get Iran to the negotiating table, Trump told AFP on Wednesday.
\nPM Shehbaz, in a separate X post, said China, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt and Qatar had all provided \u201csupport towards reaching the ceasefire and giving peaceful diplomatic efforts a chance\u201d.
\nThe prime minister also thanked Arab Gulf nations for their \u201ccommitment to peace and stability in the region\u201d.
\nDespite trading missile fire with Iran two years ago and holding an at-times rocky relationship with the United States, Pakistan currently shares warm ties with both countries.
\nPakistan shares a 900-kilometre (560-mile) border and represents some Iranian diplomatic interests in Washington where Tehran has no embassy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PM Shehbaz invites US, Iranian delegations to Islamabad on April 10 for peace talks islamabad Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said that Islamabad would host delegations from the United States and Iran later this week following their ceasefire announcement. \u201cI… extend deepest gratitude to the leadership of both the countries and invite their delegations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-540742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n