ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, Qatar and other regional mediators are trying to de-escalate tensions between the United States (US) and Iran and revive negotiations on a nuclear deal, a US media outlet reported on Friday, following yet another flare-up between Washington and Tehran in the Middle East.
The United States reportedly launched new airstrikes against Iran on Thursday and Tehran responded by targeting US interests in multiple countries in the Middle East in an exchange of fire that threatened an interim deal intended to help end the war in the region.
Back-and-forth attacks, including a day earlier, have repeatedly threatened the ceasefire. Thursday’s attacks appeared bigger all around, with sirens sounding at least three times in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters, and missiles targeting Kuwait and Qatar.
US news website Axios reported that the mediators believed that, regardless of the recent escalation in the Middle East, the parties made progress toward a nuclear deal in earlier rounds of talks and want to prevent the peace deal from collapsing.
“There are extensive diplomatic efforts to first agree with both sides on de-escalation and then set a date for another round of negotiations between the technical teams,” Axios quoted one regional source involved in the mediation as saying.
An Iranian official accused the US of launching an airstrike later Thursday targeting the area around Iran’s sole nuclear power plant, and other explosions were reported elsewhere in the country during the afternoon.
The strikes came hours after US President Donald Trump said recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signalled the end of a fragile ceasefire and threatened to escalate the conflict if they didn’t stop. That raised concerns that the region could tip back into a war that would engulf several countries and could halt energy shipments through the strait that are crucial for the global economy.
Pakistan emerged as a key intermediary after hosting direct talks between senior US and Iranian officials in Islamabad earlier this year.
While those negotiations failed to produce an immediate breakthrough, they paved the way for continued engagement that culminated in last month’s interim peace agreement, called the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi held a telephone conversation on Thursday with Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and said Washington was not adhering to the Pakistan-brokered interim peace framework, according to Iranian state media.
“Statements by US officials indicating they are not adhering to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding are a clear sign of a breach of the agreement and the continuation of Washington’s war-mongering policies,” IRNA quoted Araghchi as telling Munir.
Pakistan has not publicly commented on the conversation, and its military has released no readout of the call. Islamabad has remained largely tight-lipped about its role in facilitating negotiations between Washington and Tehran, disclosing few details of contacts between the two sides throughout the mediation process.
In Iran, the two days of American airstrikes have killed at least 14 people and wounded another 78, Iran’s Health Ministry said Thursday. Most were reportedly members of the armed forces.
In Kuwait, the military said falling debris wounded one person as the nation shot down three ballistic missiles, a cruise missile and 10 drones. Bahrain said it shot down incoming fire, without elaborating. There was no immediate word of damage in Qatar.
The US military’s Central Command earlier said it hit 90 targets across Iran, releasing black-and-white footage of what appeared to be strikes on an airport runway and missile launchers.
The US said the strikes were intended to “further degrade” Iran’s ability “to threaten freedom of navigation” in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas passed before the war began with US and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28.
Traffic has picked up somewhat since a tentative deal last month included opening the waterway. Maritime data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence said Thursday that preliminary data showed at least 576 ships passed through the strait in June, compared with 233 in May.
More than 3,100 transited the strait in June 2025.
