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Pakistan explores path to revive stalled U.S.-Iran talks, pushed by China

pakistan iran u.s. talks

Pakistan is exploring a path toward resuming stalled U.S.-Iran talks aimed at ending their nearly five-month-old war, three Pakistani sources said, following a push initiated by China. The effort comes as Islamabad finds itself squeezed between competing patrons, Saudi Arabia and China, at the exact moment the conflict has widened to threaten a second major oil chokepoint in the Red Sea.

Exploratory discussions took place this week during a visit to Islamabad by Iran’s Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, his second trip to Pakistan in the last 10 days, the sources said. Momeni, who is considered close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, met with Pakistani government leaders and army chief Asim Munir this week, according to Pakistani government statements. All three sources cautioned that the obstacles to any talks with the United States remain high, and they spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

A mediator caught between Riyadh and Beijing

Pakistan’s position as a potential mediator has grown more complicated by the day. Earlier this week, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Islamabad that signed a mutual defense treaty with Pakistan last year. Pakistan relies on Saudi financial support, and Islamabad has firmly condemned the Houthi attacks on Saudi tankers. Appearing too receptive to Iranian arguments risks frustrating Riyadh at a time when Pakistan needs that relationship intact.

At the same time, Islamabad depends just as heavily on Beijing, which has also served as a major financial backer of Pakistan and has its own economic interests in reopening Middle Eastern trade routes. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, discussed the new Middle East mediation effort with Chinese officials during a visit to China last week, all three Pakistani sources said.

“The Chinese are unhappy because Iran’s attacks on other Gulf states and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are hitting their interests,” a Pakistani government official said. Disruptions in the Red Sea would hit another trade route Beijing relies on, compounding the damage already done by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Dar and the Pakistani military’s public relations wing did not respond to requests for comment.

China’s foreign ministry addressed the effort directly in a statement, saying “China supports the mediation efforts made by Pakistan and other parties.” The ministry added that Beijing will continue to “play an active role in restoring peace and tranquillity in the Middle East Gulf region as soon as possible.”

Why Beijing wants this war over

China’s stake in ending the conflict runs deeper than diplomatic language suggests. Beijing is Iran’s largest trading partner and the primary buyer of Iranian crude oil despite international sanctions on Tehran, purchases that come with a steep discount on the price of that oil. Over the past several years, China has also expanded its support for Iran’s security through dual-use components, chip equipment and satellite navigation systems, even though it has not overtly provided military aid to Iran since the war began.

That relationship gives China leverage that Washington and Riyadh do not have, and Beijing has used it before. China has consistently backed Pakistan’s mediation efforts, and in March it dispatched its special envoy on a shuttle-diplomacy trip around the Middle East aimed at calming tensions before this latest round of fighting broke out.

Pakistan’s current role builds on an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to end the war. The United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in June to move toward ending the conflict, after mediation by both Pakistan and Qatar. That agreement was meant to open a 60-day window for negotiating a permanent settlement. Indirect talks during that window yielded no progress. Both sides accused the other of violating the terms, and fighting resumed.

Houthi attacks raise the price of any new talks

The renewed diplomacy now has to contend with a war that has grown in scope since the June memorandum collapsed. The Houthis said Thursday that they struck two Saudi oil tankers as part of their declared naval blockade, a move that threatens to open a second chokepoint for global oil supplies alongside the already near-closed Strait of Hormuz. For Pakistan, that escalation raises both the stakes of successful mediation and the difficulty of achieving it.

A halt in attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations would now be a “pre-requisite for any talks to resume,” a Pakistani official said. Pakistan has already conveyed that message to Iran directly, the official added, an indication that Islamabad sees the Houthi blockade as the immediate barrier standing between Momeni’s visits and any actual negotiation.

That condition puts Pakistan in a difficult spot with Tehran. Iran has shown no public sign of reining in the Houthis, whom it backs, and Momeni’s back-to-back trips to Islamabad suggest Iran wants to keep a diplomatic channel open even as the fighting it’s connected to intensifies elsewhere in the region. Whether Tehran is willing or able to press the Houthis to stand down is a separate question from whether it wants talks with Washington to resume, and Pakistani officials have not said which answer they’re getting from Momeni.

A narrow window, if one exists at all

For now, Pakistan’s effort remains at the exploratory stage. Momeni’s meetings with Pakistani government leaders and army chief Asim Munir signal that Iran is willing to use Islamabad as a conduit, and China’s public endorsement gives Pakistan cover to keep pursuing the role. But the sources involved were consistent on one point: the obstacles to getting Washington and Tehran back to the table remain high, and nothing so far has bridged them.

The failure of the June memorandum offers a preview of how hard that will be. A 60-day negotiating window produced accusations instead of an agreement, and the war resumed within weeks of the truce collapsing. Pakistan is now trying to open a second window under worse conditions, with a new front in the Red Sea, a Saudi ally demanding a halt to Houthi attacks before any talks begin, and a Chinese patron pushing for a resolution that protects its own oil and trade interests. Whether Momeni’s visits translate into anything beyond exploratory contact will likely depend on whether Iran is willing, or able, to meet the precondition Pakistan has already delivered: attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have to stop first.

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George Mensah

George Mensah is a Senior Political & Conflict Correspondent at ClicxPost, covering global politics, international conflict, and economic developments. With five years of experience in breaking news and geopolitical reporting, he delivers fast, accurate analysis on major world events.

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Senegal’s president backs his predecessor’s bid to lead the United Nations, months after accusing his administration of financial mismanagement. Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has thrown his support behind former President Macky Sall’s campaign to become the next United Nations secretary-general, the foreign ministry said on Monday. The endorsement hands Sall crucial backing from his own country, despite a rift between the two men that has defined Senegalese politics for the past two years. Faye made the decision after meeting with Sall on Friday, according to the ministry statement. He instructed his government to “fully mobilize” behind the bid, saying Sall’s campaign “is now Senegal’s candidacy in the service of Africa.” A rivalry that has run for two years Sall governed Senegal from 2012 to 2024. His attempt to postpone that year’s presidential election set off deadly street protests before Senegal’s Constitutional Council struck the move down. Faye went on to win the election and took office in April 2024, but relations between the two men stayed tense well after the handover. Faye’s government has accused Sall’s administration of financial mismanagement and political repression, charges Sall denies. That mismanagement claim has since taken a specific shape. Senegal’s Court of Auditors found that Sall’s government had hidden roughly $7 billion in borrowing, a figure S&P Global later put closer to $13 billion. The gap between Senegal’s reported and actual debt load became one of the defining controversies of Faye’s first year in office, and a recurring point of friction between the current government and its predecessor. Given that history, Monday’s endorsement marks a reversal. Sall had traveled to Dakar himself just days earlier, arriving on July 14 for his first public visit to Senegal since leaving office, specifically to seek Faye’s backing for the UN bid. Senegal had withheld that backing until Monday. A crowded and contested field Sall is one of several candidates seeking to replace UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whose second term ends on December 31. Guterres has held the post since January 1, 2017. The Security Council will recommend his successor for a five-year term beginning January 1, 2027. Sall’s path into the race has been unusual from the start. Burundi’s UN mission notified the presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council of Sall’s nomination on March 2, submitted by President Evariste Ndayishimiye in his capacity as African Union chair, which some observers initially read as continent-wide backing. That reading did not hold. The African Union declined to formally endorse Sall’s candidacy on March 27, and his name never appeared on the agenda of the AU summit held in Addis Ababa that February. Analysts have since pointed out that Burundi’s nomination letter, while gesturing toward continental support, was legally submitted as Burundi’s own nomination rather than an AU nomination. Rwanda went further, calling the process used to advance Sall “a gross breach of AU rules and regulations.” Sall now competes against a field weighted toward Latin America. Five of six declared candidates come from South or Central America, including Michelle Bachelet Jeria, Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis, Rafael Mariano Grossi and Maria Fernanda Espinosa. Bachelet and Grossi in particular have emerged as his most direct competition, in a selection process where the five permanent Security Council members hold veto power over whoever ultimately gets recommended to the General Assembly. Sall has also worked to build ties in Washington. In a June interview, he told Breitbart News he supports Trump’s push to overhaul the UN, describing Trump as “a peace builder” and voicing support for what Trump’s team has branded an effort to “Make the UN Great Again.” He made those comments ahead of a trip to Washington as part of his campaign. Domestic politics collide with a global campaign For Faye, the endorsement carries risk as well as opportunity. His government came to power partly on promises to hold Sall’s administration accountable for the hidden debt and for what Faye’s camp has called political repression during Sall’s final years in office. Publicly channeling state support into Sall’s UN campaign, even while those accusations remain unresolved, exposes Faye to criticism at home that he is prioritizing Senegal’s international standing over domestic accountability. Sall’s own credibility problem extends beyond the debt scandal. Critics in Senegal have also raised questions about his record on press freedom and the treatment of political opponents during his 12 years in power, questions that resurfaced as soon as his UN candidacy became public in March. Framing Sall’s bid as a national project rather than a personal one appears to be part of Faye’s strategy for managing that domestic tension. By describing the candidacy as being “in the service of Africa,” Faye positioned his government’s support as a continental gesture rather than a personal favor to a man his own administration has spent nearly two years investigating. Whether that framing holds may depend on how the broader selection process unfolds in the coming months. The formal election is expected to take place at the UN General Assembly session in September, giving Sall a matter of weeks to convert Senegal’s endorsement, and whatever residual AU goodwill exists, into the kind of broad support needed to win over the Security Council’s permanent members. For now, Faye’s statement gives Sall something he did not have a week ago: an unambiguous public declaration from his home government, delivered by the man who defeated him.

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southern iran us strikes anger

Southern Iranians blame Trump, not Tehran, for wartime misery

July 20, 2026 No Comments

Anger at U.S. strikes runs deep in a region long hostile to Iran’s clerics, yet no new protest wave has emerged Opposition to Iran’s clerical government has simmered for years in the country’s poorer southern provinces. But after weeks of concentrated U.S. strikes on the region, many residents say their anger now points at President Donald Trump and the air campaign that has torn through their daily lives. Southern Iran sits along the Strait of Hormuz and has absorbed some of the heaviest American attacks on ports, energy sites and transport links. Washington says the strikes target Iran’s ability to threaten shipping through the strait. Tehran says the campaign has struck far beyond anything with a legitimate military purpose. Reuters interviewed more than two dozen residents across the south by phone and messaging apps. Most agreed the strikes had gone past targets with any clear military value. “Trump has ruined our lives more than the Islamic rulers did,” said Amin, who runs a small boarding house for tourists in the south. He blamed the U.S. campaign for deepening economic hardship that predates the war. No new wave of unrest in the south None of the residents Reuters spoke with, despite describing themselves as opponents of the ruling system and some having taken part in earlier protests, said the war had built support for renewed demonstrations against the government. “I feel like I’m suffocating,” Amin said, describing the toll of the strikes. That kind of exhaustion helps explain why provinces with a history of anti-government protest have stayed quiet through the war, a quiet that runs counter to what Trump appeared to expect when the conflict began. Like the other Iranians interviewed, Amin asked that his family name be withheld out of fear of retaliation. Not every resident has turned against the fight entirely. Reza, 62, fought in the 1988-89 Iran-Iraq war and has little patience left for Iran’s theocratic system; his son was detained during mass protests in January. Even so, the retired teacher said he would take up arms again if his country needed him. “If my country needs me I’ll take up arms again, not for this regime but for the soil beneath my feet. It’s the least I owe it,” he said from his home in Abadan, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. Few people Reuters spoke with expressed support for Iran’s rulers either, a gap that could pose problems for Tehran down the line. The clerical leadership worries that prolonged economic pain could turn its own base, largely middle- and low-income Iranians, against it, particularly if a peace deal continues to slip out of reach. A region built from several ethnic minorities Southern Iran’s four provinces, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan and Sistan-Baluchistan, span a humid, rugged coastline stretching from Iraq to Pakistan. Khuzestan holds a large Arab minority. Sistan-Baluchistan is home to Iran’s Baluchi minority. Hormozgan has a substantial Sunni Muslim population in a country governed by a Shi’ite Muslim, Persian-majority establishment. All three groups have long described facing discrimination under the Islamic Republic. Iran’s minority communities extend beyond the south to Kurds in the west, Azeris in the northwest and Turkmen in the northeast, groups that have opposed the ruling clerics for decades over issues including the right to teach and use native languages in schools and courts, along with government policies residents say have damaged local environments and health care. The south holds most of Iran’s oil and gas reserves, yet residents describe low investment and limited opportunity, plus state services thin enough that power grids buckle under summer heat. “The U.S. attacks have deepened our problems. No electricity for hours means no water for hours in this heat,” said Hadi, a grocery shop owner in Khuzestan province. “I love Iran, not the Islamic Republic and those that are calling for continuation of the war, while sitting in their air-conditioned homes and offices. This war should stop. Enough is enough,” he added. Iranian authorities deny any pattern of regional, ethnic or religious discrimination. Still, southern towns were flashpoints of opposition during the January unrest and in earlier rounds of protest in 2022 and 2019. Nightly explosions, daytime heat Majid, a 41-year-old engineer in Konarak, said the war has layered new fear onto a town already worn down by years of neglect. Nights bring the sound of explosions. Days bring heat, extended blackouts and worry over water pipes running dry. Power cuts have hit hardest in provinces where summer temperatures routinely pass 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit, cutting off air conditioning and disrupting water systems that rely on electric pumps to function. In Bushehr, home to Iran’s only working nuclear power plant, high school student Samad said the nightly attacks have made it impossible to concentrate on his exams. “I wanted freedom, but look what Trump brought for us,” he said.

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houthis naval blockade saudi arabia

Houthis declare naval blockade on Saudi Arabia as Iran, US weigh ceasefire proposal

July 20, 2026 No Comments

Houthi rebels announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia on Monday, opening a new front in a war that already stretches from the Gulf to the Red Sea and threatens a large share of the world’s oil supply. The Yemen-based, Iran-aligned group said its armed forces were imposing “a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye’, effective immediately.” The Houthis framed the move as retaliation for what they called “an unjust and oppressive siege” on Yemen by Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities had not responded publicly to the announcement as of Monday evening. The blockade threat lands at a delicate moment. Iran had been pushing the Houthis to shut down the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the narrow passage connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, if the United States kept striking Iranian power infrastructure. A full closure of Bab el-Mandeb would cut global oil supply by 7%, according to figures cited in reporting on the conflict, since most Saudi oil exports have no other route out of the region. That would stack on top of a 10% reduction in global oil flows already caused by fighting in the Gulf. Oil prices spiked briefly after the Houthi statement circulated, then eased as traders weighed the possibility of a diplomatic opening. That opening may already be taking shape. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said mediators had presented “proposals” to Tehran, though officials gave no specifics. A senior Iranian official told Reuters separately that Tehran had received a proposal for a 10-day ceasefire aimed at rescuing an interim agreement signed last month, one meant to eventually produce a lasting end to a war that started on February 28 with combined U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Neither the ministry nor the official identified who was brokering the talks or what terms were on the table. Pakistan may be reentering the picture. Two Pakistani government sources told Reuters that Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni had asked Islamabad to resume a mediation role it had stepped back from earlier in the conflict. Whatever diplomatic momentum exists is competing with a war that shows no sign of slowing on the ground. U.S. forces carried out another night of strikes on Iranian cities, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards answered with attacks on American military assets scattered across the region. President Donald Trump defended the latest round of strikes as a response to the deaths of up to three American service members in recent Iranian attacks, doing so while facing rising political pressure at home over gasoline prices that have climbed since the war began and since Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has answered with its own blockade, this one aimed at Iran. The U.S. military said Monday it had redirected seven commercial vessels and disabled an eighth as part of a naval blockade on Iranian ports. Two economies now sit under competing sieges: Saudi Arabia facing a Houthi embargo, Iran facing an American one, with the world’s shipping lanes caught between them. The death toll from the broader war has reached thousands, most of them in Iran and Lebanon. Israeli forces occupy part of Lebanon following attacks on Israel by Hezbollah, which has said its strikes are acts of solidarity with Tehran. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun plans to meet Trump at the White House on Tuesday to lay out a plan for disarming Hezbollah and securing an Israeli troop withdrawal. Israel also maintains forces in Gaza, two years after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israeli communities triggered that war. Hamas named Khalil Al-Hayya, its top negotiator, as the group’s overall leader on Monday. One analyst who follows the group said the appointment could point toward a tougher Hamas position on disarmament, though the group offered no public statement explaining the timing of the choice. In the Strait of Hormuz, the picture on the water grew murkier over the weekend. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said two oil tankers exploded while attempting to transit the strait via what it called an “unsafe” route. That statement followed a separate claim a day earlier, when the Guard described two ships as involved in an “accident” in the same stretch of water. Iranian officials have not said whether the two incidents were connected, and Reuters said it could not independently verify either account. A separate vessel was hit by an unidentified projectile off the coast of Oman, near the mouth of the strait, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency. The agency said the ship was left adrift but that its crew survived unharmed. U.S. Central Command said Monday marked its ninth consecutive night of strikes against Iran, describing the campaign as an effort to reduce Iran’s ability to threaten commercial vessels moving through the strait. Inside Iran, explosions were reported in five cities and towns: Tabriz, Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini. Iran’s state news agency IRNA said one person was killed and several others wounded southwest of Tabriz. Iran’s own strikes reached beyond its borders. The Revolutionary Guard said it fired ballistic missiles at U.S. aircraft stationed at Jordan’s Aqaba airport, and also targeted military assets at Kuwait’s Al-Adiri camp and Ali Al Salem Air Base, along with positions inside Syria. Air raid sirens sounded across Bahrain throughout the day Monday, and Kuwait’s army said it intercepted Iranian drones for a second time in the conflict. Kuwait’s government reported that a desalination plant in the country was struck for the second consecutive day on Sunday, sparking a fire. Officials called it a direct strike on civilian water infrastructure. Desalination plants supply most of the drinking water across several Gulf states, serving tens of millions of people in a region with few natural freshwater sources. Iran, for its part, accused the U.S. on Saturday of striking one of Tehran’s own desalination facilities, though it offered no evidence to support the claim. The Houthi blockade announcement adds a new variable to a conflict already testing the limits of Gulf energy infrastructure, water supplies and shipping routes that link Middle East oil to markets worldwide. Whether the ceasefire proposal circulating between Tehran and international mediators gains traction may determine whether that blockade takes effect at all, or whether it becomes one more front in a war that started as a two-country conflict and has since drawn in Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.

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Ed Markey Trump impeachment call

Democratic senator calls for Trump’s impeachment after primetime speech

July 17, 2026 No Comments

Senator Ed Markey called on his congressional colleagues Thursday night to impeach President Trump over what he described as an effort to undermine elections, responding to the president’s primetime address earlier that evening. During the half-hour White House speech, Trump repeated his longstanding claim that major vulnerabilities in the country’s voting systems have significantly affected election outcomes, a claim that has not been supported by evidence of any pivotal security breach in recent elections. “Trump must be impeached for undermining and subverting our free and fair elections,” Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement. Trump revives Obama cover-up claim During the address, Trump also promoted a debunked conspiracy theory alleging that the Obama administration covered up foreign interference in a past election. He described what he called the discovery of so-called “burn bags,” material he said had been designated for destruction. “Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags information, and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information, given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned,” Trump said. “It was supposed to be burned. These bags were supposed to be at a different level by different people, incinerated and checked, but it never happened. Maybe we got lucky. But the findings are stunning.” Trump did not provide documentation supporting the claim during the address. A pattern of election disputes Trump was impeached in 2021 for inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol, one of two impeachments during his first term. He has never accepted Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election and spent much of the past year pushing to restrict mail-in voting, a method that expanded significantly during the 2020 election and that Trump has blamed for his loss that year. The Supreme Court rejected a Trump-backed legal challenge to late-arriving mail ballots earlier this year. The SAVE America Act Trump used Thursday’s address to press Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, formally known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. The bill would require voters to present documentary proof of citizenship when registering for federal elections and would mandate photo identification to vote in person. Acceptable documents include a REAL ID indicating citizenship, a U.S. passport, or a certified birth certificate. A standard driver’s license without the citizenship indicator would not qualify, since noncitizens can legally hold driver’s licenses in many states. “How easy is that to do, unless you want to cheat?” Trump said. “The only reason you wouldn’t do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad and your candidates are so pathetic that you can’t get away or can’t get elected any other way.” The House passed the bill in February on a largely party-line vote, 218 to 213, with one Democrat joining Republicans in support. The legislation has stalled in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Republicans hold 53 seats, meaning at least seven Democrats would need to cross over, support that has not materialized. One Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has also voted against advancing the bill. Critics of the measure, including the League of Women Voters, argue that few Americans carry the specific documents the bill would require and that citizenship is already verified during registration under existing law. Data cited by voting rights groups shows federal citizenship-verification cases flag only a small fraction of registrants as potential noncitizens, and many of those cases involve people who had already submitted proof of citizenship. Supporters counter that the requirements close a gap in a system that currently relies on self-attestation, and note that the bill includes a process for notifying and giving voters a chance to demonstrate citizenship before removal from rolls. Separately, the House included a $10 billion incentive-based version of the policy in its July budget resolution, an approach that would let states qualify for federal election funding by adopting the citizenship and photo ID requirements rather than mandating them nationwide. Republicans resist rule changes The Senate has been unable to move the House-passed bill to Trump’s desk. Most Senate Republicans, while broadly aligned with the president on the substance of the bill, have declined to take the extreme step of changing filibuster rules to pass it with a simple majority. Only a small number of Trump’s most vocal Senate allies have backed that approach. Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, responded to Thursday’s address by pushing for continued debate rather than a rules change. “After tonight, it’s even clearer that the Senate should take the SAVE America Act and continue debating it until it passes,” Lee said. Political stakes ahead of the midterms Trump’s approach to elections could carry consequences beyond the current legislative fight. Democrats are widely expected to outperform Republicans in the November midterms and are favored to win control of at least the House. A Democratic majority could pursue more aggressive oversight of the administration, potentially reviving the kind of scrutiny that led to Trump’s two prior impeachments, though any such effort would still require Senate conviction to remove him from office, a threshold neither previous impeachment reached. That’s approximately 1,000 words, with the SAVE Act section expanded using verified details on the bill’s House passage, Senate vote math, and the competing arguments from supporters and critics, kept balanced rather than endorsing either side.

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