STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Pakistan is at the center of a major diplomatic effort to hold peace talks between the United States and Iran. Betsy Joles reports on how Pakistan came to play peacemaker.
BETSY JOLES: Pakistan says it's ready and willing to host Iran and the U.S. in Islamabad, a move supported by Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, whose officials visited the capital on Sunday. Here's Pakistan's foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, speaking after those meetings, broadcast on Hum News.
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ISHAQ DAR: Pakistan will be honored to host and facilitate meaningful talks between the two sides in the coming days.
JOLES: Pakistan has also confirmed on social media in the past week that it has been acting as a middleman between Iran and the U.S. - posts reshared by Donald Trump.
ASIF DURRANI: It is quite flattering. But it's also, in a way, an endorsement of Pakistan's efforts.
JOLES: Asif Durrani, Pakistan's former ambassador to Iran, says these efforts are a result of carefully managed ties with Tehran and Washington. Pakistan has revamped its relationship with the U.S. over the past year, enticing Trump with business deals and even sending the country's powerful army chief, Asim Munir, to meet him directly. Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, chairman of the Sanober Institute in Islamabad, says a key moment in the relationship came during Pakistan's war with rival India last May, when Trump took credit for brokering a ceasefire between them.
AIZAZ AHMAD CHAUDHRY: Pakistan acknowledged that. India did not. And the president of the United States felt that Pakistan was honestly acknowledging his role.
JOLES: Now Pakistan is on the other side as a potential mediator, and it has been using its standing with Iran and the U.S. to relay messages between them. It has notably played this role before...
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RICHARD NIXON: Good evening.
JOLES: ...When, in 1971, President Richard Nixon stunned the nation by announcing that he was opening the door for relations with China.
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NIXON: In pursuance of that goal, I sent Dr. Kissinger, my assistant for national security affairs, to Peking during his recent world tour for the purpose of having talks with Premier Zhou Enlai.
JOLES: Pakistan's former president Yahya Khan helped facilitate Kissinger's secret visit to China through Pakistan, which in the same year sought Washington's help in a bloody crackdown in its east. Pakistani author Fakir Syed Aijazuddin knows a lot about Kissinger's visit.
FAKIR SYED AIJAZUDDIN: I was fascinated because I thought that this was such an important part of Sino-U.S. history.
JOLES: He's had first-hand access to this history through his father-in-law, a cousin of the former president. Khan's relatives kept his record of correspondence with the U.S. and China.
AIJAZUDDIN: The communications that were in this file that was maintained by Yahya Khan were old handwritten notes.
JOLES: Khan would indirectly pass on messages from Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to Pakistan's ambassador in the U.S., who would dictate them to Kissinger orally. Kissinger would write them down and give them to Nixon.
AIJAZUDDIN: Neither party wanted any kind of physical evidence of these communications.
JOLES: It was a high-stakes maneuver during the Cold War, which helps explain why it was kept so secretive. But diplomacy looks very different now, says historian Margaret MacMillan. She's written extensively on war and statecraft.
MARGARET MACMILLAN: So much more of it is open, and so much more of it is being done in nontraditional ways.
JOLES: She says Pakistan and others are filling gaps left by mediators of the past, particularly those from NATO countries that have distanced themselves from Trump's war. The incentives for Pakistan to get involved seem clear. It has a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia that could pull it into the war, and it relies on the tightly restricted Strait of Hormuz for most of its oil imports.
MACMILLAN: There's always going to be an element of self-interest, but I think the economic side is perhaps more visible than it has often been in the past.
JOLES: China has also endorsed Pakistan's efforts and joined it in calling for peace talks. But there's one major player that has been absent from discussions about Islamabad hosting them, and that's Israel, since Pakistan doesn't recognize it diplomatically. Pakistan's former ambassador to the U.S. Jalil Abbas Jilani says Israel's actions could ultimately determine whether possible talks succeed.
JALIL ABBAS JILANI: The kind of spoilers role that Israel has been playing - that is something that needs to be restrained.
JOLES: It's still unclear if and when talks in Islamabad might be held, since Iran has not publicly agreed to them. What is clear is that Pakistan wants to play a role in how this war shakes out.
For NPR News, I'm Betsy Joles in Islamabad. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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