00:00well pakistan is reportedly trying to take up the role of lead mediator in the war in iran
00:04according to the financial times islamabad is leveraging its ties to washington and tehran
00:10as it tries to broker an end to the conflict let's get more now from our pakistan bureau chief
00:16fasir mangi so uh fasir what would pakistan bring to the table here um hey paul thanks for having
00:23me so um what we understand is that you know um what pakistan brings to the table is that it
00:29is
00:29someone that has uh very close ties with the with the gulf countries it's gotten a growingly closer
00:35relationship with trump and it is someone that understands the region quite well so iran
00:40being its neighbor pakistan has had um long ties with it and historically we've seen last year as
00:46well when uh when there was a clash that happened between the u.s and iran last year pakistan did
00:52do some back channel and then too and it seems that pakistan is now making a push to mediate talks
00:57between the two countries u.s and iran and pakistan is positioning islamabad as a destination
01:04for the talks um this is what we are getting from our sources as well
01:09so how has pakistan's relationship with the united states evolved in the recent months
01:16so um what we've seen is that pakistan's relationship with the u.s has not been closer
01:22than what it is today in decades it's been it's the best relationship that it's been there in decades
01:28it all started last year when pakistan had a conflict with india um since then uh pakistan has
01:36has um said that you know trump was an integral part in um brokering the ceasefire between the two
01:43countries um since then we've seen that pakistan has had growing relationships with uh the u.s comes
01:50when it comes to you know trade uh when it comes to investments when it comes to even crypto um
01:56forays that pakistan is making right now um so all in all we've seen that you know ties have
02:02grown closer than ever before that was our pakistan bureau chief fisi manji there joining us now is
02:11jennifer parker adjunct professor at the university of western australia's defense and security institute
02:17jennifer thanks so much for joining us today and i'm wondering if we can start by discussing
02:23the current state of the security situation in the middle east particularly this claim that president
02:29trump is has negotiations underway around denying and then at the same time we've got thousands of
02:36u.s marines due to arrive in the region on friday what does that imminent arrival suggest to you
02:44well look i don't think we can make an assumption that this conflict is uh about to be over anytime
02:49soon but i think with uh president trump's comments on talks and iran's denial i think it is very clear
02:55that some degree of talks are going on now we've seen the egyptian foreign ministry uh tweet and then
03:02confirm that there was a meeting over the weekend between the u.s envoy steve wikoff uh and the iranian
03:09foreign ministry and some others we've also seen pakistan talk about uh them speaking to iran and
03:15hoping to be a mediator so some degree of talks are clearly uh going on and in the end this
03:21was
03:21always where this conflict was going to end i think the u.s outlines their four key military objectives
03:27but to get to the end of that they were going to have to have some degree of diplomacy i
03:32think it will
03:32be important for the u.s to be able to demonstrate though that they have limited uh and set back
03:38iran's
03:38military capability but in terms of when this conflict ends look i think you'd be a fool to
03:43try and predict that but i do think we are talking hopefully in the magnitude of weeks not months
03:50now in the fog of war we're often left resorting to speculation so i'm wondering what your view is on
03:56why iran would deny negotiations are taking place look i think there's a couple of elements um it's been
04:03clear during this uh conflict that iran's information operations campaign has been to
04:10attack and discredit president trump so um they've made a lot of comments in fact there was a tweet
04:16over the weekend from an iranian uh official um talking about you know president trump you're fired
04:22referring to his uh previous television show before he entered politics so given that president trump had
04:28said very clearly that he was uh not going to go ahead with strikes on power stations which to be
04:34honest was highly unlikely strikes on power stations are most likely a breach of international humanitarian
04:40law so i don't think the u.s was about to do that but given that he had said that
04:44and then backed away
04:45from that i think it's part of iran's information operations campaign to try and make him look uh weak
04:52or inconsistent uh that said there's also potentially another explanation which is that
04:57the iranian revolutionary uh guard and the iranian revolutionary regime more broadly
05:03don't have great internal communications we know from some u.s intelligence reporting within
05:09u.s congress that the regime is intact but it's certainly significantly degraded so whether they are
05:16communicating effectively unclear you may also be seeing uh different tussles within uh the regime
05:24uh for power now of course they've appointed their new supreme leader he does not come with the clout
05:30of the previous supreme leader and there are genuine questions about whether he is well or even alive so
05:37all of those things may fed into iran's denial
05:40do you
05:40you
05:40you
05:40you
05:40you
05:40you
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