A quiet Gulf player may steal Pakistan’s ‘miracle’ moment

Nearly 5,000 km from Islamabad, a quiet Gulf neighbour by the Strait of Hormuz may now hold the key to the Iran–US ceasefire, delivering a blow to Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s dream of playing peacemakers.

Tehran could now prefer Oman as a more neutral venue for the talks after there was no visible breakthrough in Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s talks with Sharif and senior officials.

On Sunday, Araghchi returned to Islamabad for second round of negotiations. His visit came as international mediators tried to keep the Iran–US peace talks on track after US President Donald Trump called off his envoys’ planned trip for the summit.


ALSO READ | Iran renews Oman ties for peace talks with Washington

According to the Iranian news agency ISNA, Iran’s Foreign Minister was to sit down with Pakistani officials to convey “Iran’s positions and views on the framework of any understanding to completely end the war”. Some sources, as per The Economic Times, described Araghchi’s trip as a short transit stop before his departure to Russia.

After concluding his visit to Russia, Araghchi again arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday, marking his third visit to Pakistan in the past 48 hours. This time, there is no planned trip of US envoys, and the outcome of Iran’s visit remains to be seen.

With the US delegation nowhere in sight and a deadlock in negotiations, these repetitive arrivals lay bare Pakistan’s limitations as a go-between, even as Oman’s tried-and-tested backchannel comes back into play.

ALSO READ | Iran FM Abbas Araghchi lands in Pakistan for third visit in 48 hours

“A mediator that could end this conflict on terms Washington deemed acceptable would be viewed globally as a miracle worker,” Christopher Clary, associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, told Bloomberg. “A mediator that failed would merely be a normal country. The problem is Pakistan wanted to be viewed as a miracle worker.”

A trusted player

Meanwhile, Muscat has for years acted as a neutral mediator between the United States and Iran.

Muscat’s credibility rests on three pillars: the Ibadist philosophy of moderation, its past track record of discretion, and its refusal to take sides in regional proxy wars, Rahul Chopadekar, VP Marketing, Rubix Data Sciences, told ET Online. While Qatar and the UAE have often acted as mediators, they are frequently perceived as having skin in the game (e.g., the UAE’s historical rivalry with Iran), he stated. Oman, conversely, adheres to the principle of “enemy of none”.

The trusted intermediary was the site of the secret 2012–2013 talks that paved the way for the JCPOA (the Iran Nuclear Deal). Muscat managed these talks for nearly a year before they were made public, proving its ability to maintain “black-site level confidentiality, a trait highly valued by both US intelligence and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”

Moreover, Oman frequently acts as the primary facilitator for prisoner swaps. The Gulf nation has acted as a humanitarian transit bridge to secure the release of various foreign nationals—including Americans, Belgians, Swedes, and Britons—all held on trumped-up espionage charges and released only after the Iranian regime was paid off, as Burzine Waghmar of the SOAS South Asia Institute, University of London, noted in an email response to ET Online.

Such actions reflect a delicate tightrope walk; despite having a formal security arrangement with the United States since 1980, Oman has never adopted a policy against Iran. Prof. Aswini K Mohapatra, formerly Dean, School of International Studies, JNU, highlighted this in an interview with ET Online, noting that this neutrality has been a constant, whether during the Iran-Iraq war or afterwards."

Omani diplomacy has always been low-key, and this has led to both foes reposing confidence in Muscat, Waghmar asserted.

Beyond geography’s steady hand

Muscat’s stake in peace is as fixed as the map itself. Iran and Oman face each other across the Strait of Hormuz, a bone of contention between the US and Iran since the start of war and now the bane of the global energy crisis.

Oman jointly shares maritime jurisdiction over the Strait of Hormuz with Iran, a point often overlooked, especially given Iran's “hollow” claims about controlling it entirely, Waghmar stated.

“This flies in the face of international norms, even prior to the war.”

Approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), roughly 20% of global petroleum liquid consumption, passes through the Hormuz. Because the shipping lanes fall within the territorial waters of Oman and Iran, Muscat is the only Arab capital that has the “compulsion” to maintain a functional security relationship with Tehran to ensure global energy stability, according to Chopadekar.

Both countries have historically maintained a cordial relationship, in sharp contrast to Iran’s ties with other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, which have accused Tehran since 1979 of fomenting unrest or attempting to destabilise their governments, including the alleged Bahrain coup attempt in 1981 and the failed assassination attempt on the Kuwaiti emir in 1985.

Pahlavi-era Iran, prior to the Islamic Revolution, also assisted the Sultanate of Oman in suppressing the Dhofar rebellion, a Marxist secessionist movement that affected Oman between 1962 and 1975. As a result, “Oman’s relations with Iran were not significantly disrupted after the revolution, as Tehran did not seek to export its ideological influence there, unlike in other parts of the Arabian Peninsula, which are predominantly Sunni monarchies”, Waghmar told ET Online.

Its refusal to join anti-Iran blocs within the GCC, coupled with its role in facilitating the secret US–Iran negotiations in 2013, has consolidated its reputation as an “honest broker.”

Calling Oman an “honest broker”, Dr Amit Singh, Associate Professor, Special Centre for National Security Studies, said the choice of Muscat as a diplomatic venue carries strategic signalling value. Given that the negotiations are closely linked to de-escalation in Hormuz, holding talks in Oman spatially anchors the dialogue to the core issue.

“It enables Iran to project both its capacity to influence maritime security and its willingness to ensure stability. In contrast, alternative venues such as Pakistan lack this geostrategic resonance and signalling effect.”

Trust issues with Pakistan

Expectations were sky-high that Pakistan would pull off a second round of negotiations this past weekend, setting the stage to wind down the war. Instead, the talks didn't just fail to launch; they didn't even make it to the runway.

This stall highlights the limitations of Pakistan’s current diplomatic posture. Prof Mohapatra observed that Islamabad’s role is less than that of an independent mediator and more like a “postman”—simply collecting messages from Washington and delivering them onward to Tehran.

"The irony of Pakistan’s role as a mediator lies in how it frames its own national state of affairs," Mohapatra noted. "While most nations view political fragility and economic vulnerability as systemic weaknesses, Pakistan appears to treat these traits as a source of diplomatic strength."

This "strength through vulnerability" approach, however, has clear limits when it comes to long-term regional integration. While this transactional style of diplomacy might facilitate a quick hand-off of messages, it fails to build the deeper reservoir of confidence required for a lasting partnership. If Oman acts as the region’s reliable diplomatic vault, built on years of carefully guarded neutrality, Iran’s relationship with Pakistan remains a far more complicated dance.

Despite the swings in US-Pakistan relations during the War on Terror or the discovery of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Tehran has always maintained that Islamabad, for all its anti-Western posturing, “remains firmly in the American camp”, said Waghmar.

True, Tehran received some blueprints and used centrifuges from Pakistan to kickstart its nuclear programme in 1987, but the relationship remains “transactional” with both neighbours “wary of each other.”

“Both trade charges of aiding separatists in their namesake Balochistan province, which straddles the border of both republics. Iran simply does not have these complicated entanglements or grievances against Oman.”

Even following the failed first round of Islamabad talks, the Iranian delegation returned with the belief that the Pakistanis are partial to pleasing the Americans and not honourable arbiters, added Waghmar. “Much of their thinking is coloured by their recent history of antagonism and accusations of cross-border terrorism, secessionism and sectarian tensions.”