Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday said that Iran had agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons, while the United States was seeking the complete dismantling of Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme. He also lauded role of Azerbaijan for helping in evacuation of Pakistani from Iran.
\n\u201cI held a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and disclosed that Iran had agreed not to build nuclear weapons, but the US wanted Iran\u2019s entire nuclear programme to be completely dismantled,\u201d he said while briefing the Senate on Pakistan\u2019s diplomatic efforts following the recent attack on Iran.
\nThe Middle East conflict expanded with no end in sight, with Israel attacking Iran and Tehran firing missiles and drones at the \u201cUS interests and bases\u201d across the Gulf states.
\nDuring the four-day conflict, a number of Iranian senior leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, embraced martyrdom in the \u201cunprovoked and unwarranted\u201d airstrikes by Israel and the United States.
\nIranian officials warned that Khamenei\u2019s martyrdom would mark a turning point, with the Revolutionary Guard vowing retaliation and declaring that \u201cthis great crime will not go unpunished\u201d.
\nSpeaking on the floor of the upper house of parliament, the deputy premier said Pakistan ensured that Iran\u2019s right to continue a peaceful nuclear programme was accepted.
\nHe told parliamentarians that Pakistan was prepared to facilitate mediation between the United States and Iran in Islamabad, saying that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir played a \u201cvery active and positive role in diplomatic and defence-level engagements\u201d.
\nDar said he had immediately contacted the Iranian foreign minister after the attack and strongly condemned the strikes on Iran.
\nHe said the prime minister, on behalf of the government and people of Pakistan, also conveyed condolences on the martyrdom of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
\nHe informed the upper house that after the attack on Iran, he spoke to the foreign ministers of many countries, including Turkiye, Maldives, Bangladesh, Iran, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman.
\nDar said the Omani foreign minister informed him that positive progress was being made in the Iran-US talks and that negotiations had been moving in the right direction, despite which Iran was attacked.
\nHe said Iran is a brotherly and neighbouring country, and Pakistan has made full-scale diplomatic efforts to resolve the matter.
\nHe added that Pakistan also worked through back-channel diplomacy to find a peaceful solution, and that the Iranian leadership was fully aware of Islamabad\u2019s efforts.
\nDar said Pakistan supported Iran\u2019s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and recalled that when Pakistan held the presidency of the UN Security Council, it convened several debates on the issue.
\nHe said that the recent attack resembled last year\u2019s June incident, adding that in June, when Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Asim Munir was returning to Pakistan from the United States via the United Kingdom, Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi invited him to Istanbul, where meetings were held, and Iran was urged to resolve the issue through diplomacy and negotiations.
\nDar said people who protested should know that Pakistan stood with Iran.
\nHe said some parties insisted that Iran must remain under monitoring and that Pakistan was also asked to be included among the three countries in this framework.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday said that Iran had agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons, while the United States was seeking the complete dismantling of Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme. He also lauded role of Azerbaijan for helping in evacuation of Pakistani from Iran. \u201cI held a meeting with US Secretary of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94555,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94536\/revisions\/94555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}