ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s planned visit to Switzerland was called off after the United States and Iran signed a peace agreement electronically, eliminating the need for a previously planned signing ceremony, a senior Pakistani official said on Thursday.
The development came hours after the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Sharif had signed the agreement, known as the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (Islamabad MoU), in his capacity as mediator. The PMO said the document had already been signed electronically by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The agreement aims to end months of conflict between Washington and Tehran, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, ease restrictions on Iranian oil exports and launch a 60-day process to negotiate a broader settlement of disputes surrounding Iran’s nuclear program.
According to Pakistani officials, Sharif had been scheduled to travel to Switzerland on Thursday as part of a high-powered delegation to attend a formal ceremony linked to the accord.
“The prime minister’s visit has been canceled,” a top official at the Prime Minister’s Office told Arab News on condition of anonymity.
“With the objective of the MoU signing having been achieved, with technical talks yet to begin, PM Sharif’s visit to Switzerland has been called off,” he added. “Pakistan will continue to play the mediatory role for US-Iran technical talks, whenever the parties are ready for it.”
The cancelation comes as senior Pakistani diplomats, state television crews and several journalists had already arrived in Switzerland in anticipation of the event.
Until this week, Pakistani officials had expected a formal ceremony in the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock attended by Sharif, Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Information Minister Attaullah Tarar.
The agreement follows a conflict that began in February when the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, assassinating the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and military leaders on the first day.
It quickly spiraled into a regional conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, driven up energy prices, renewed inflationary pressures and sparked concerns about a major food supply crisis in developing countries.
Pakistan played a mediating role throughout the conflict. Islamabad hosted rare direct talks between US and Iranian officials in April and has since helped relay messages between the two sides while coordinating with other countries involved in diplomatic efforts, including Qatar, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China.
Under the terms outlined by Washington and Tehran, the agreement enters into force immediately. Sharif said earlier on Thursday that Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the United States would lift its naval blockade as initial confidence-building measures.
The accord also launches a 60-day negotiating period during which Washington and Tehran are expected to seek a longer-term agreement on Iran’s nuclear activities, sanctions relief and other outstanding disputes.
Despite the breakthrough, tensions remain.
Speaking after the agreement was finalized, Trump warned that military action could resume if Iran failed to meet its commitments.
“If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?” Trump said.
Iran’s leaders did not address the new threats from Trump while celebrating the moment, releasing photographs of what is believed to be the first agreement signed by both a US and Iranian president since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979.
“Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation; it was not even comparable,” Iran’s lead negotiator Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf told state television about the agreement, which includes the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets.
—With additional inputs from Reuters.
