{"id":46001,"date":"2026-04-16T00:34:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=46001"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:34:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:49:39","slug":"pakistan-pm-arrives-in-saudi-arabia-in-push-for-new-us-iran-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/pakistan-pm-arrives-in-saudi-arabia-in-push-for-new-us-iran-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan PM arrives in Saudi Arabia in push for new US-Iran talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>Pakistan&#8217;s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday at the start of a four-day tour before a possible second round of US-Iran peace talks, his office said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Sharif will also visit Qatar and Turkey on his trip, which comes after Washington and Tehran held their highest-level talks in decades in Islamabad last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The Pakistani leader will discuss the &#8220;regional situation&#8221; with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi de facto ruler, his office said.<\/p>\n<p>The visits to Saudi Arabia and Qatar will be conducted &#8220;in the bilateral context&#8221;, while Sharif will participate in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum while in Turkey, Pakistan&#8217;s foreign ministry said earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Sharif will also hold bilateral meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other leaders on the sidelines of the Antalya forum, it said.<\/p>\n<p>The Islamabad talks marked a step forward in efforts to end the war that began when the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n<p>Iran targeted US allies in the Gulf &#8212; including Saudi Arabia and Qatar &#8212; in retaliation and blocked energy exports from the region, sending oil prices soaring.<\/p>\n<p>The talks concluded without an agreement to end the conflict, but US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that negotiations could resume this week in the Pakistani capital.<\/p>\n<p>A fragile ceasefire due to expire next week remains in place, despite the United States ordering a naval blockade of Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Sharif is being accompanied by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar &#8212; one of the mediators during the US-Iran talks &#8212; and other senior officials on his visits, his office said.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan and Saudi Arabia share close ties, and Islamabad&#8217;s finance ministry announced on Wednesday that Riyadh would provide Pakistan with $3 billion to help bolster its foreign reserves.<\/p>\n<p>That support came days after Pakistan said it was returning billions in loans to Riyadh&#8217;s ally-turned-rival the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>The finance ministry said an existing $5 billion Saudi deposit would also be extended for an unspecified period.<\/p>\n<p>Separately, a Pakistani delegation led by army chief Asim Munir arrived in Iran, where it was welcomed by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.<\/p>\n<p>Iranian state TV said earlier that the delegation would bring a new message from Washington and was due to discuss a second round of talks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan&#8217;s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday at the start of a four-day tour before a possible second round of US-Iran peace talks, his office said in a statement. Sharif will also visit Qatar and Turkey on his trip, which comes after Washington and Tehran held their highest-level talks in decades [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46002,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46001\/revisions\/46002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}