ADNAN AAMIR
ISLAMABAD — As the Iran-Israel conflict rolls on, Pakistan is walking a tightrope between maintaining the country’s position as an important part of the Islamic world in diplomacy and closing the border with Iran to mitigate a spillover effect on the ground.
Since Friday, the day Israel launched strikes on Iran, Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, has intensified diplomatic interactions. According to posts in the ministry’s X account, Dar held phone calls with the foreign ministers of Iran, Turkey, Egypt, UAE and the U.K. to stress Pakistan’s concern over the deteriorating regional situation. He called the Israeli attacks “unjustified.”
Expression of support for Iran has gone further. On Tuesday, Pakistan co-signed a statement from 20 regional countries condemning Israel’s offensive.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif urged the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, an intergovernmental organization representing 57 Muslim states, to unite and said that no Muslim country is safe if Israel’s aggression continues.
However, experts doubt that Pakistan can diplomatically mobilize Islamic countries.
“This is not realistic at all,” Umer Karim, a researcher at the University of Birmingham, told Nikkei Asia. “There may be some diplomatic activity and OIC may even issue a condemnation against Israel, but considering the bilateral relationship between several Arab and Muslim states and Israel, this is unlikely to result in anything politically significant.”
Zahid Shahab Ahmed, an associate professor at the National Defence College of the UAE, concurred. “Given the deep divisions within the Muslim world and the institutional limitations of the OIC, any significant or coordinated diplomatic initiative led by Pakistan is unlikely to result in tangible outcomes beyond rhetorical condemnations or symbolic mediation proposals,” he said.
While Pakistan works diligently to emphasize its support for Iran through diplomatic routes, experts point to multiple sources of concern for Islamabad in the wake of the tensions.
One of them is a video publicized by an Iranian National Security Council member, Mohsen Rezaei, on Monday. It claimed that Pakistan had told Iran that if Israel dropped a nuclear bomb on Tehran, Pakistan would retaliate in kind against Israel. This claim was widely reported in global media.
“This is irresponsible and false news,” Dar said on the floor of the parliament on Monday. “From our side, there has been no such statement — it was fabricated.”
Nuclear weapons aside, many experts doubt Pakistan’s willingness to get involved in the conflict.
“[Supporting Iran militarily] may lead to putting Pakistan directly into the crosshairs with Israel, which Pakistan cannot afford as it already is facing a hostile neighbor on its eastern border,” Karim told Nikkei in a reference to India.
The second concern comes from the Iran-Pakistan border known as the Goldsmid Line, which was demarcated in the 1870s by the British Empire and had split Baloch tribes across two countries. In recent years, Iran has accused Islamist militant groups of launching attacks from Pakistani territory, while Pakistan has made similar allegations about Baloch separatist groups launching attacks from Iran. This led to cross-border strikes by the two countries in January last year.
“In the context of the Israel-Iran conflict, secular Baloch militant groups in Pakistan and ethnoreligious militant outfits in Iran may see an opportunity to draw international attention to their causes,” Imtiaz Baloch, a researcher at the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, told Nikkei. “They could position themselves as strategic actors capable of destabilizing both countries, hoping to gain support from global powers with vested interests in countering Iran and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan.”
Israel’s continuing bombing of Iranian cities and nuclear-related facilities is a concern for Pakistan as Iranians look for safe refuge. Despite its avowed diplomatic support for Iran, Pakistan has not said it will receive any Iranian evacuees, and is only allowing Pakistani nationals living in Iran across the border. This apparent contradiction is likely due to the country’s deep sectarian fault lines.
The Islamic world today is broadly divided into Sunni and Shia branches, with Saudi Arabia and Iran serving as their respective power centers. Pakistan, a Sunni-majority state, is also home to one of the largest Shia populations in the world, making it a key center of Shia Islam after Iran.
“Certain sections within Pakistani society may pressure the government to support Iran, and this may again open up sectarian fault lines within the country,” said Karim.
Ahmed believes the Iran-Israel conflict could exacerbate sectarian tensions within Pakistan. “Pakistan’s relationship with Iran is marked by mutual suspicion and periodic cooperation, constrained by sectarian dynamics, border security concerns, and Pakistan’s close strategic ties with Gulf Arab states and the broader Western bloc,” he said.
The article appeared in the asia.nikkei