Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday offered to mediate between India and Pakistan during a conversation with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the Iranian media reported on Sunday.
“The Islamic Republic welcomes any measures and efforts towards establishing lasting peace between Pakistan and India, and it can play a mediating role to that aim,” Pezeshkian was quoted as saying during a phone conversation with Sharif on Eid-ul-Azha.
According to the Tasnim News Agency, the President emphasised that Iran’s principled policy entailed promoting de-escalation and fostering peace globally, particularly within the Islamic world.
Pakistan’s relations with Iran have been strained in recent years, particularly since Tehran conducted missile attacks in 2024 inside Balochistan against a Baloch insurgent group involved in insurgency in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan area.
This is the second time Iran has offered to mediate since the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22. Soon after the attack, Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had in a social media post said: “Tehran stands ready to use its good offices in Islamabad and New Delhi to forge greater understanding at this difficult time…”
India has over the past 50 years bristled at the mention of third-party mediation, maintaining that all issues between New Delhi and Islamabad are bilateral as stipulated in the Simla Agreement. Though Pakistan has put the agreement in abeyance in response to India doing the same with the Indus Waters Treaty in the wake of the Pahalgam attack, Islamabad has always welcomed mediation.