Pakistan’s military led Field Marshal Asim Munir has been cutting personal deals under the guise of international diplomacy including New York’s famed Roosevelt hotel at a time when the country sought to place itself as a peace mediator between Iran and the US.
While Pakistan is trying to take credit and earn applause from certain quarters for acting as a “mediator”, Egypt—one of the pillars of the Arab world—played a key role to achieve the ceasefire, ET has learnt. Cairo, given its outreach across the region and beyond, played an important backchannel role.
Simultaneously, Pakistan PM Shahbaz Sharif Wednesday caused a major international embarrassment for his country by posting the draft of the ceasefire deal on social media platform X.
Sharif had initially posted “Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X” with his own message on Wednesday. “Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future. To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture. We also urge all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war, in the interest of long-term peace and stability in the region,” he wrote, tagging Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian among others.
Notably, what’s telling is the US-Pakistan deal on jointly redeveloping New York’s historic Roosevelt Hotel. The pact inked in February has raised many questions over the secrecy regarding the details of the project, said people familiar with the deal.
The landmark hotel in New York, visited by several Pakistani leaders, is owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). The deal was signed around the same time in February when Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif was in the US to take part in the inaugural meeting of the Trump-led Board of Peace.
Over the past year since Operation Sindoor, Munir has been instrumental in creating new media platforms and think tanks in Islamabad. The idea was to create news channels and think-tanks of global standards, but the initiatives are yet to deliver results, alleged a Pakistan watcher.
Properties owned by Pakistani leaders in the UAE have also come to light in the backdrop of Abu Dhabi’s demand to Pakistan to repay the loan. UAE has asked Pakistan to repay a $3 billion loan. Meanwhile, Islamabad delayed backing Riyadh with military assets when the latter faced missile attacks from Tehran despite a bilateral defence pact signed last year.