New Delhi: A retired Russian diplomat Russia became the latest to commend Pakistan’s mediation efforts to end the West Asia war, describing Islamabad as “a significant and effective player in resolving external problems not directly related to its interests”.
The endorsement follows similar praise from the US and China.
Writing in New Eastern Outlook, retired ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Anvar Azimov said Pakistani mediators had demonstrated “high skill in their politics and diplomacy” to resolve the conflict.
An ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary is the highest-ranking diplomatic representative, serving as the permanent, personal representative of the head of State to another State or international organisation. Azimov served as Russian ambassador to Croatia from 2015 to 2020, and was previously the country’s envoy to Zambia. He began his career as minister councilor at the Russian embassy in India in 1994.
Son of former Soviet ambassador to Pakistan Sarvar Azim, Azimov cited the facilitation of direct US-Iran contacts—the first in 47 years—as evidence of Islamabad’s diplomatic reach.
“The unprecedented US-Iranian contacts organised by Islamabad, despite their outcome, testify to a certain success of Pakistani diplomacy,” Azimov wrote in the magazine, published by Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Monday.
But his praise came with an observation. Azimov noted that Pakistan’s external diplomatic achievements stand in sharp contrast to unresolved tensions closer to home, particularly with India and Afghanistan.
“Unfortunately, Islamabad itself remains far from normalising relations with its closest neighbors, India and Afghanistan,” he wrote.
Moscow, he said, has a stake in easing those frictions, and is looking to deepen ties with Islamabad even as it sustains its longstanding strategic partnership with New Delhi.
“Russia is interested in stability and security in the Indian subcontinent, as well as in resolving the sensitive issues between Pakistan and India and Afghanistan. Alongside its privileged strategic partnership with India and its desire to strengthen cooperation with Afghanistan, Russia also seeks to expand multifaceted and mutually beneficial relations with Pakistan,” Azimov said.
On Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry acknowledged Pakistan’s “assistance in brokering the temporary US-Iran ceasefire, as well as for playing a fair and balanced mediating role”. Both the warring sides, the US and Iran, had separately expressed appreciation for Islamabad hosting the first round of negotiations on 11-12 April.
Pakistan has pursued the role of what Azimov called an “honest broker” and a neutral intermediary, drawing on ties maintained simultaneously with Washington, Beijing and Tehran. Its diplomatic push to discuss the West Asia conflict included a 29 March meeting in Islamabad that brought together the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and a subsequent visit to Beijing by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.
These efforts laid the diplomatic groundwork to host direct talks between high-level US and Iranian delegations in Islamabad on 11 April—an unprecedented meeting that did not produce a long-term peace plan, but, in Azimov’s assessment, demonstrated the weight Islamabad carries.
Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir also went to Tehran Wednesday to convey messages from Washington, and was received by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi.
The US has indicated that the second round of talks in Islamabad are in the offing, though a final date is yet to be declared. US President Donald Trump said earlier this week the world should expect an “amazing two days” and that the war with Iran was “very close” to an end.
Azimov said he has witnessed first hand the seriousness with which Islamabad approaches regional security.
“At the end of March 2026, while in Islamabad at an event dedicated to the bilateral relations of the USSR and Russia with Pakistan, organised by the Russian embassy, I saw how responsibly this major South Asian country, which possesses nuclear capabilities, approaches issues of regional security,” he wrote.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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