Why Iran’s President Pezeshkian is heading to Pakistan after US-Iran talks

Islamabad, Pakistan – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is set to arrive in Islamabad for a state visit that is as much a gesture of gratitude as it is a statement of intent. The trip on Tuesday – his first overseas visit since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28 – comes a day after Pakistan and Qatar announced that the first round of high-level US-Iran talks in Burgenstock, Switzerland, had yielded a 60-day roadmap towards a final deal. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list The timing is not incidental. Pezeshkian arrives in Islamabad having just signed the most significant diplomatic agreement of his presidency. The deal faces the same factional fault lines at home that overshadowed the 2015 JCPOA negotiations. The 2015 JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers – the US, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China. According to the deal, Tehran agreed to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from international sanctions. The US withdrew from the deal in 2018, during the first presidency of Donald Trump. “The fact that Pezeshkian is going to Islamabad immediately after signing the MoU tells us that he needs to convert this fragile agreement into political capital – at home, within the state, across the region, and internationally,” Reza Khanzadeh, a Middle East analyst and professor at George Mason University, told Al Jazeera. …