Worried by rising oil prices, US pushed Pak to broker ceasefire with Iran

Worried about surging oil prices and surprised by a resilient Iranian regime, the White House pushed Pakistan to broker a temporary ceasefire with Tehran, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

For weeks the Trump administration was leaning on Islamabad to convince the Iranians to agree to a pause in fighting where it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the newspaper said, quoting "people familiar with the talks".

"Pakistan's crucial role, as a Muslim-majority neighbour and intermediary, was to sell it to Tehran," the report said.

US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran as proposed by Pakistan.

 

Trump, worried about surging oil prices and surprised by a resilient Iranian regime, was eager for a ceasefire since at least his first threat on March 21 to "obliterate" Iran's power plants, according to five people familiar with the Pakistan-led back channel, the Times reported.

It said Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir and other senior Pakistani officials began passing messages between Iranian political and military figures and the White House soon after Trump issued his first ultimatum to open the strait.

The FT report said that Munir embarked on a flurry of calls to top US officials, including Trump, Vice President J D Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff as Trump ratcheted up pressure to "obliterate" Iran and set April 7 as the deadline.

"The US and Pakistan believed Iran was more likely to accept the US-backed offer if it was delivered by a Muslim-majority neighbour state that had emphasised its neutrality throughout the conflict," the report said.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the two-week proposal public on social media after Munir spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Sharif, who framed the deal as Pakistan's initiative, mistakenly included a subject line at the top of his post: "draft - Pakistan's PM message on X", it said.